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Sauce

To Make Onion Sauce

A sauce made from boiled onions, butter, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Make Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil eight or ten large onions, changing the water two or three times while they are boiling.

  2. When enough, chop the onions on a board to keep them a good colour.

Make the sauce

  1. Put the onions in a saucepan with a quarter of a pound of butter and two spoonfuls of thick cream.

  2. Boil the mixture a little.

  3. Pour the sauce over the ducks.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

197Calories
2 gProtein
17 gFat
10 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Onions
Form the body of the sauce and supply its mild, sweet flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a glossy finish.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smoother, thicker texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture a little. Cream can separate and turn grainy if boiled hard or for too long, so keep the heat gentle and the boil brief.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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