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Onion Custard for Garniture of Soups

A custard made from pureed onions, cream, eggs, and seasonings, baked in molds and used as a garnish for soups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Onion Custard for Garniture of Soups

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. In an earthen bowl, combine the onion puree and cream.

  2. Add the raw eggs and egg yolks, then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Mix well and strain through a fine sieve.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter small fancy-shaped tartlet molds and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Place the molds in a pan of hot water, ensuring no water enters the molds. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set, but do not brown.

Finish

  1. Once cooked, turn out of the molds and let cool.

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.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Raw eggs and yolks set into a tender custard structure as they cook.
White onion puree (soubise)
Provides the main flavour and body of the custard.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake gently in a water bath without browning. Egg custard sets through gentle heat. Too much heat or water entering the molds can make it curdle, grainy, or porous, and browning means the oven is too hot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, pepper, nutmeg, butter. 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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