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Stuffed Onions

A baked dish of onions filled with sausage, egg, breadcrumbs, butter, Tabasco, parsley, topped with cracker crumbs and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the tops off the onions and scoop out the insides.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the sausage, chopped egg, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, butter, Tabasco, and parsley.

  2. Fill each onion shell with the mixture.

  3. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top and place a thin slice of bacon over each onion.

  4. Bake for 1 to 2 hours until the onions are tender.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and turns soft and sweet as it bakes.
Sausage
Supplies fat and savory flavor to the filling as it cooks inside the onion.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds its shape when baked and sliced.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and fat from the sausage and butter, giving the filling a softer body.
Bacon
Renders fat over the top of the onions, adding savory flavor and some browning.

The step that matters

Bake until the onions are fully tender. Onions must cook long enough for their starches to break down and their sugars to soften; stopping early leaves them firm and sharp, while the sausage filling also needs to cook through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, sauce, parsley. 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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