Why it works: Onion and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,206 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Apples Fried with Onions
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and slice the onions.
Fry the onions and apples
Fry the onions in fat until rich brown; drain on paper.
Fry unpeeled quarters of apples in the fat left from the onions.
Serve
Arrange the apples in a border on a platter; fill the center with the fried onions and serve hot.
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.
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Onion + appletop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,206 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Onions
- Browned in fat to give a rich, sweet, savory flavor and a golden color.
- Apples
- Fried until tender and lightly browned, adding sweetness and contrast to the savory onions.
The step that matters
Frying the onions until rich brown. Onions turn sweet and deeply flavored only when their sugars brown slowly; cooking too fast or too briefly leaves them pale and sharp. Draining them well keeps excess fat from making them greasy.
“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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