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Silver- Skinned Onions in Cream

Creamed silver-skinned onions simmered in butter, flour, milk, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Silver- Skinned Onions in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Remove skins from one quart of silver-skinned onions.

  2. Put the onions in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, add one-half tablespoonful of salt, and boil for five minutes, then drain.

  3. Again cover the onions with boiling salted water and cook until soft, but not broken, and drain thoroughly.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter, add three tablespoonfuls of flour, and pour in gradually one cupful of scalded milk and one-half cupful of cream.

  2. Add the onions to the sauce and let stand for twenty minutes.

  3. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

807Calories
23 gProtein
26 gFat
119 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
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 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Cooked with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the milk and cream into a sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour starches gelatinize.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, silkier texture.
Silver-skinned onions
Cooked until soft but intact, providing the main body and mild sweetness of the dish.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions until soft but not broken. Onions simmered too long lose their structure and turn mushy, while undercooked onions stay firm and sharp. Draining thoroughly matters too, because excess water thins the cream sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cream, 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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