Cream of Asparagus Soup

Name: Cream of Asparagus Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: 800 g asparagus; 1 medium white onion, roughly diced; 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped; 2 cloves garlic; 1 litre light chicken or vegetable stock; 150 ml heavy cream (double cream); 30 g unsalted butter; 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 tsp fine sea salt; 0.5 tsp white pepper; 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice; 3 tbsp crème fraîche or sour cream, to serve

A silky American cream of asparagus soup: the whole vegetable steeped in light stock and blended to complete smoothness, enriched with cream and finished with the blanched tips floating on a pale green surface, cool and vivid as the New England spring

Origin: New England, United States

From the journey of Asparagus.

The cream of asparagus soup became one of the defining preparations of the American 'fine home cooking' tradition in the 19th and early 20th century: the kind of recipe found in Fannie Merritt Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) and later in the settlement house cookbooks that shaped middle-class American cooking across New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Hadley, Massachusetts, in the Connecticut River valley, is the oldest commercial asparagus-growing town in America and was, for much of the 19th and early 20th century, the nation's asparagus capital: its light, sandy alluvial soil producing extraordinary yields of the green asparagus introduced by English settlers. The cream soup as a form was a European import (French velouté, English cream of celery, cream of mushroom), but its application to asparagus became specifically American: the long-simmered, blended, and finished vegetable soup that could be served both hot and cold, as an elegant first course at dinner or a summer luncheon starter. The soup's pale green colour and precisely silky texture, achieved by passing through a fine sieve after blending, are the hallmarks of the classical preparation, still made across American households and restaurants as the definitive use of spring asparagus.

Ingredients

Vegetable

800 g asparagus

Aromatics

1 medium white onion, roughly diced
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic

Liquid

1 litre light chicken or vegetable stock

Cream

150 ml heavy cream (double cream)

Fat

30 g unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil

Seasoning

1 tsp fine sea salt
0.5 tsp white pepper

Acid

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Finishing

3 tbsp crème fraîche or sour cream, to serve

Method

Prepare the asparagus: snap off the woody ends and reserve. Cut the tips from the top 5–6cm and set aside in a bowl. Roughly chop the remaining stalks.
In a large saucepan, melt the butter with the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and cook gently for 8–10 minutes until soft, translucent, and beginning to smell sweet. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add the chopped asparagus stalks to the pot. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20–25 minutes until the asparagus is completely tender and almost falling apart.
Allow the soup to cool slightly, then blend in batches until completely smooth. Pass the blended soup through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing down firmly on the solids to extract maximum liquid. The passed soup should be a smooth, uniform pale green with no fibrous threads.
Return the sieved soup to the pan over medium heat. Stir in the cream and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with salt, white pepper, and lemon juice. Taste: the soup should be clean, deeply asparagus-forward, lightly creamy without being heavy.
Blanch the reserved asparagus tips in boiling salted water for 2–3 minutes until just tender and bright green. Drain and set aside.
Serve the soup in warm bowls, floating a few blanched tips in the centre. Add a small spoonful of crème fraîche. The soup can also be served cold in summer: chill thoroughly and add a squeeze of extra lemon before serving.

Notes

This soup is equally excellent hot and cold. As a chilled summer soup, it is one of the great American summer dishes: pale, elegant, intensely flavoured. The celery adds structure and depth without being detectably 'celery-tasting'. The soup can be made 1–2 days ahead and reheated or chilled: the flavour improves overnight.

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

To explore — select an ingredient below · click any location dot on the map for recipes and stories · browse the information panel on the right · trace the full journey on the timeline.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control