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Baked Spanish Onions

Baked Spanish onions are boiled, wrapped in paper, then baked, served with cold butter and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Spanish Onions

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the onions, with their skins on, into a saucepan of boiling water slightly salted, and let them boil quickly for an hour.

  2. Take the onions out and wipe them thoroughly.

  3. Wrap each onion in a piece of paper separately.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the wrapped onions in a moderate oven for 2 hours, or longer if the onions are very large.

  2. Serve the onions in their skins, eaten with a piece of cold butter and a seasoning of pepper and salt, or peel them and pour a good brown gravy over them.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

152Calories
2 gProtein
12 gFat
12 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
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 Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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

Spanish onions
Form the main body of the dish, becoming very soft and sweet after long cooking.
Cold butter
Adds richness and fat that melts over the hot onion as it is eaten.

The step that matters

Wrapping each onion separately before baking. Wrapping each onion in paper keeps its moisture trapped during the long bake, so it steams and softens rather than drying out.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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