Home › Soups › Cream of Asparagus
Cream of Asparagus
Proceed as with cream of celery soup, substituting one half bundle of fresh asparagus or an equal amount of canned for the stalk of celery. Or, the tips of a bundle of asparagus may be cut oif for table use and the remainder used for soup. In either case the asparagus will be better if mashed through a colander, thus removing the woody portions. 3 ears corn CREAM OF CORN No. 1 Water to cover the corn 1 1 bay leaf 1 pint cream stock Run a sharp knife down through the center of each row of kernels, and with the back of a knife press out the pulp, leaving the nusk on the cob. Break the cobs and put them on to boil in sufficient cold water to cover them. Boil thirty minutes and strain the liquor. Return the liquor to the fire, and when boiling add the corn pulp and bay leaf. Cook fifteen minutes; add the cream sauce and serve.
CREAM OF CORN No. 2 1 pint canned corn 1/2 tablespoon chopped onion 1 bay leaf 1 pint cream stock Cook the corn, onion and bay leaf for fifteen minutes; add the cream sauce and serve. 1 quart spinach
A cross-reference recipe: it borrows the method and the cream base from the book's cream of celery, and only the vegetable changes. Everything hinges on getting the fibre out and not cooking the asparagus long enough to turn it grey.
- A bundle of asparagusMarket bunches of the period were commonly around a pound or so, so half a bundle is perhaps 8-12 oz; sizes were not standardised. "An equal amount of canned" means roughly the same weight of drained canned asparagus.
- Cream stock, cream sauceThe book appears to use both terms for the same thing: a thin white sauce. The exact proportions are given elsewhere in the book, not here. A pint is the quantity specified for the companion corn soups on this page; the asparagus version gives no quantity, referring the cook back to cream of celery.
- Mashed through a colanderThis is the instruction that matters. Asparagus stalk is stringy, and pressing the cooked stalks through a colander or sieve with the back of a ladle leaves the woody fibre behind. A blender purees the fibre rather than removing it, so sieve after blending if you use one.
- Cook the stalks, not the tipsThe recipe gives no timing; simmer the trimmed stalks until fully tender before sieving. If you are saving the tips for the table, a few briefly blanched tips can be added to the finished soup for texture.
- ColourGreen asparagus loses its colour if it sits at a simmer in a milk-based liquid. Sieve the puree, then combine it with the hot cream sauce off direct heat and serve promptly.
- SeasoningThe corn versions on the same page each get a bay leaf; the celery original, not reproduced here, presumably carries the salt and pepper. Asparagus takes salt, white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg; taste after the cream sauce goes in, since the sauce dilutes everything.
Cream soups built on a thin white sauce were the backbone of American home entertaining from the 1880s through the 1920s, and cookbooks of the era routinely wrote them as a single master method with a list of interchangeable vegetables, exactly as here. Asparagus was a spring luxury with a short season, which is why the recipe bothers to salvage the tough lower stalks after the tips have been sent to the table: the woody ends were flavour that would otherwise be thrown out. The alternative of canned asparagus, offered without apology, marks the period when commercial canning had made a formerly seasonal vegetable available year round in the ordinary household.