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Onion Pie

A baked pie filled with sautéed onions, cream, milk, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Onion Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and lard over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions and fry until soft.

  3. Stir in the sweet cream, milk, and eggs.

  4. Thicken the mixture with flour mixed in a little milk.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the onion mixture into the baked pie crust.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until the top is browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide the main bulk and sweet, savoury flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard-like filling as it bakes, giving it structure.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and body to the filling, helping it bake smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the liquid mixture so it holds together rather than running.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the onions soften and brown gently.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour mixed in a little milk. Flour mixed into liquid first prevents lumps, so it thickens evenly. Adding it dry can leave clumps that never fully dissolve.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, milk, egg, flour, 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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