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Cream of Asparagus Soup

A creamy soup made from cooked asparagus blended into a warm cream sauce, garnished with whipped cream and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the asparagus

  1. Cook the asparagus in water or stock for 10 minutes.

  2. Cut the tiny flowers from the tips of the asparagus and set aside.

  3. Press the cooked asparagus through a sieve into a bowl.

Make the soup

  1. Add the asparagus puree to the warm cream sauce and mix well.

  2. Season to taste and stir in grated onion if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup in bowls, adding the reserved asparagus flowers on top.

  2. Top each bowl with a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle with parsley.

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. Asparagus + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main flavour and the smooth, thick body of the puree.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and a silky texture that carries the asparagus flavour.
Water or white stock
Cooks the asparagus and supplies the liquid that softens it for pureeing.
Whipped cream
Adds cool richness and a soft, creamy finish on top of the hot soup.

The step that matters

Pressing the cooked asparagus through a sieve. Fibrous asparagus left coarse makes the soup gritty. Pressing the fully cooked spears through a fine sieve breaks down the cell walls and yields a smooth puree that blends evenly into the cream sauce.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, cream, sauce, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, cream, sauce, parsley. 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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