Name: Pickle Onions
Ingredients: Onions; Sweet milk; Water; Spiced vinegar

Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Pickle Onions

Ingredients

Onions
Sweet milk
Water
Spiced vinegar

Directions

Peel the onions.
Boil the onions in a mixture of sweet milk and water for 10 minutes.
Drain the milk and water from the onions.
Pour scalding spiced vinegar over the onions immediately.
Tie up the onions in a jar or container.

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.

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.

Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,418 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Milk + vinegartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,949 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).