Name: Baked Onions
Ingredients: 2 lbs onions; 1 pint thick gravy; 1 pint water; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

Peel the onions and place them in cold water.
Bring the water to a boil, then strain it off.

Bake and serve

Butter a baking dish and add the onions.
Pour in the water, cover with a plate, and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven.
Stew until soft, then transfer to a hot dish.
Pour over the onions either thick gravy or melted butter.
Serve hot.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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: Provide the main body and sweetness as they soften and stew in the dish.
Thick gravy: Adds moisture and savory richness to the onions when poured over them.

“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.