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Dutch Onion Pie

A savory pie filled with browned onions, milk, cream, flour, egg, and butter, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Dutch Onion Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until they are delicately browned.

  2. Add the milk, cream, flour, beaten egg, and salt to the onions and mix well.

Bake

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

  2. Return the pie to the oven and bake until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 body and sweetness of the filling as they soften and brown.
Butter
Fat that carries onion flavor and helps the onions brown.
Milk and cream
Supply the liquid and richness that give the filling a soft, custard-like texture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the filling holds its shape when baked.
Egg
Sets the filling into a firm custard as it bakes.

The step that matters

Browning the onions gently. Slow, moderate heat lets the onions caramelize and turn sweet. Rushing over high heat can scorch them, leaving bitter flavor in the filling.

Swap the onion

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

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

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