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Asparagus Soup

A savory soup of asparagus, broth, turnips, onions, and eggs, served with roasted fowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Asparagus Soup

Why it works: Asparagus and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 138 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the broth, onions, turnips, sweet herbs, and asparagus in a pot; simmer until tender.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to strain it; season to taste.

  3. Boil the tops of the asparagus and set aside.

Prepare the garnish

  1. Poach the eggs until hard.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the clear gravy soup in another pot; add the roasted fowl for a minute.

  2. Add tarragon leaves and salt to the soup.

  3. Place the poached eggs and boiled asparagus heads in a tureen and pour the hot soup over them.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together138 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the savoury flavour of the soup.
Asparagus
Gives the soup its main flavour and, once strained, its smooth body.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma as they soften during simmering.
Eggs
Set firm when poached and add protein-rich richness to the tureen.
Clear gravy soup
Adds concentrated meaty flavour and body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Straining the simmered mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked vegetables through a fine sieve breaks down their fibres and removes stringy pieces, giving a smooth, even texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, asparagus, egg, tarragon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, asparagus, egg, tarragon. 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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