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Onion Stew

A hearty stew of onions and potatoes simmered with butter, flour, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, wash, and slice the onions.

  2. Pare, wash, and cut the potatoes in half.

Make the stew

  1. In a stew pan, combine onions and potatoes.

  2. Dredge with flour and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour in water and stir everything together.

  4. Cover and let simmer slowly until well done.

  5. Stir in the butter lightly and adjust seasoning if needed.

Serve

  1. Serve hot in a covered dish.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main body and sweetness as they soften during the slow simmer.
White potatoes
Add starch that thickens the stew liquid and gives it a hearty texture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes lightly body-rich rather than watery.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering until well done. A slow, covered simmer lets the onions and potatoes soften fully and the flour thicken the liquid evenly. Cooking too fast or uncovered can scorch the bottom or reduce the liquid unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, pepper, 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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