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Asparagus with Toast

A dish of boiled asparagus served on toasted bread with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Asparagus with Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and trim the white ends of the asparagus, then tie them in bunches.

Cook

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the asparagus for 25 to 40 minutes.

  2. While the asparagus cooks, toast the bread.

Serve

  1. Dip the toasted bread in hot water and place the asparagus bunches on top.

  2. Carefully cut the strings with scissors and remove them without breaking the stalks.

  3. Add thin shavings of butter over the asparagus and serve.

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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Asparagus + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Asparagus + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Is the main vegetable, cooked in boiling salted water until tender.
Bread
Serves as a base that soaks up hot water and holds the asparagus.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky finish as it melts over the hot asparagus.

The step that matters

Cooking the asparagus in boiling salted water. Cooking time depends on stalk thickness, so checking for tenderness matters. Overcooking turns asparagus dull and soft, while undercooking leaves it fibrous and raw-tasting.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter. 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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