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Asparagus Soup

A soup made with asparagus, onion, ham hock, chicken, flour, butter, and optional milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cut off one inch of the tops of the asparagus.

  2. Soak the tops in water.

  3. Chop the asparagus stalks.

Make the broth

  1. Place the chopped stalks in a soup pot with the chopped onion, pepper, salt, and water.

  2. Boil briskly until the asparagus stalks are tender.

  3. Strain the stalks from the liquid.

  4. Return the liquid to the pot with the asparagus tops, hock of ham, and chicken.

  5. Boil until the chicken is cooked through.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix flour and butter together to form a paste.

  2. Add some of the soup or milk to the paste to create a thickened soup.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Asparagus + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Asparagus + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavor and the green body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour into a smooth paste for thickening.
Hock of ham
Adds savory, meaty depth to the broth as it simmers.
Fat chicken
Adds savory flavor and fat to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter paste to the soup. Flour clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Mixing it with butter first coats the starch grains so they disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly instead of lumping.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, pepper, ham, chicken, flour, butter, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, pepper, ham, chicken, flour, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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