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Onions Monaco-style

Onions cooked with wine, vinegar, lemon, tomato paste, and raisins until tender and glazed.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Onions Monaco-style

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the onions

  1. Put onions in skillet with wine, vinegar, salt, pepper, and lemon slices.

  2. Simmer until onions are just tender but still crisp in the center.

  3. Stir in tomato paste and raisins and cook for several minutes.

  4. Remove the onions to a dish.

  5. Let the juices cook down with the raisins until the liquid is almost a glaze.

Chill and serve

  1. Pour over the onions and chill.

  2. Serve as an hors-d'oeuvre or with cold meat.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

174Calories
4 gProtein
1 gFat
37 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl onions
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender while staying slightly firm in the center.
Dry white wine
Provides the acidic cooking liquid that braises the onions and forms the base of the glaze.
Tomato paste
Adds concentrated savory flavor and color to the cooking juices.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and plump texture as the juices reduce around them.

The step that matters

Simmer until just tender but still crisp in the center. Onions keep cooking from residual heat and after chilling, so stopping at just tender prevents them from turning mushy in the finished dish.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, white wine, vinegar, pepper, lemon, tomato):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, white wine, vinegar, pepper, lemon, tomato. 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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