Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Asparagus

A simple boiled asparagus dish served with optional white sauce or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Asparagus

Why it works: Asparagus and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 213 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the asparagus stalks and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Tie the stalks into loose bundles with soft string.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the bundles in boiling salted water for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the strings and arrange the stalks on a hot dish.

  3. Pour white sauce or Hollandaise sauce over the asparagus, or serve melted butter on the side.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus stalks
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender texture.
White sauce or hollandaise sauce
Adds richness and fat to the mild, tender asparagus.
Melted butter
Adds fat and rich flavour as an optional side sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the bundles in boiling salted water for 30 minutes. Cooking in rapidly boiling water keeps the stalks moving and cooking evenly. Too little heat or too long a time leaves the spears soft and mushy, so watch for them to turn tender.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, butter, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar. 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.

More boiled asparagus recipes

on Toast 6with Toast 5 See all 76 →

You might also like

Asparagus SoupAsparagus Soup179 recipesAsparagus SaladAsparagus Salad77 recipesCream of AsparagusCream of Asparagus38 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes