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Sauce

Common Onion Sauce

A sauce made by boiling onions, pressing the water, and blending with hot milk and butter, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Common Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Gather four or five white onions, half a pint of hot milk, one ounce of butter, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Peel the onions and boil them until they are tender.

  3. Press the water from the onions and chop them very finely.

  4. Have the milk hot, then pulp the onions with the hot milk.

  5. Add the butter, pepper, and salt to taste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

301Calories
9 gProtein
20 gFat
24 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
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.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
Form the body of the sauce; once boiled and pulped, they thicken it and add mild sweetness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the onion pulp and gives the sauce a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Press the water from the onions. Boiled onions hold a lot of water. If it is not pressed out, it dilutes the milk and leaves the sauce thin and watery instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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