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Cream Onions

Cream Onions are onions simmered in milk with butter, cornstarch, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil the onions in two waters, then drain.

  2. If large, cut the onions into quarters.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a pot, combine scalding milk and baking soda, then set over heat.

  2. Add butter, cornstarch mixed with milk, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Simmer and serve.

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.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main vegetable body and sweetness that the cream sauce coats.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch must be whisked into cold milk first and then heated, because it clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Thickening happens as the starch granules swell with heat, so the sauce should simmer long enough for it to set.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, parsley, 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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