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Asparagus with Milk or Cream

A simple side dish of boiled asparagus finished with milk or cream, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 with Milk or Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the asparagus and cut away the tough ends.

  2. Cut the asparagus into 1-inch lengths.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the asparagus in water until tender.

  2. Drain the water and add the milk or cream, thickened slightly.

  3. Add the butter and salt, and let it boil briefly.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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 until tender in boiling water.
Milk or cream
Forms the light sauce that coats the asparagus as it thickens slightly.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk or cream. Letting the dairy boil too hard or too long can cause it to curdle or separate. Brief heating with gentle thickening keeps the sauce smooth and cohesive around the asparagus.

Swap the asparagus

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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