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Sage and Onion Tear and Share Bread

Tear and share these delicious sage and onion bread rolls - a perfect accompaniment to a warming soup.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sunflower and sage share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 36 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes 8 rolls
Prep2 hr
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Warm the milk gently until lukewarm, about 37°C/98°F. Stir in the caster sugar and yeast and leave for 5 minutes until frothy.

  2. Put the strong white flour and fine sea salt in a large bowl. Add the yeast milk and the butter, softened, and mix to a soft dough.

  3. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Oil a clean bowl with a little of the sunflower oil, return the dough, cover and leave for about 1 hour until doubled.

  4. Meanwhile, heat the remaining sunflower oil in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Cook the finely chopped onion and crushed garlic for about 10 minutes until soft and pale golden. Stir in the chopped sage and plenty of black pepper, then cool.

  5. Punch the dough down and divide into 8 equal pieces. Flatten each piece, spoon in some onion mixture, pinch the edges to seal and roll into a ball.

  6. Arrange the balls in a lined 9-inch/23cm round tin, cover and leave for about 45 minutes until puffy.

  7. Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes until golden and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.

  8. Leave the bread to cool for 10 minutes, then tear and share the rolls while warm.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sunflower + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar, butter, sunflower, onion, sage):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, butter, sunflower, onion, sage. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).