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Creamed Onions

A dish of boiled onions finished with a butter‑cornstarch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Pour boiling water over the onions.

  2. Remove the skins.

Boil the onions

  1. Place the onions in boiling salted water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Change to fresh boiling water.

  4. If the onions are very strong, change the water again after 10 minutes.

  5. Boil for half an hour or until tender but not broken.

  6. Drain the water.

Make the cream sauce and serve

  1. Add enough milk to cover the onions.

  2. Bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Remove the onions.

  4. In a separate pan, cook 1 teaspoon of cornstarch in 1 tablespoon of butter until thickened.

  5. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  6. Pour it over the onions.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Main vegetable; boiling softens them and mellows their sharp flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy sauce that coats the onions.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and carries flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk-based sauce so it clings to the onions.

The step that matters

Boil until tender but not broken. Boiling too briefly leaves the onions firm and sharp, while boiling too long makes them fall apart. Changing the water removes strong flavors, so the onions stay mild and hold their shape.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper. 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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