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Fried Apples with Onions

Fried apples and onions sautéed in butter and lard, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Apples with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the butter and lard in a skillet.

  2. Slice the apples and onions.

Cook

  1. Add the apples and onions to the skillet.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry until the onions are cooked through.

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

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

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

  5. Apple + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Apples
Soften while holding some shape, and caramelize their natural sugars for sweetness and color.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet and savory as they cook, adding depth of flavor.
Butter
Carries heat evenly across the pan and adds rich flavor and gentle browning.
Lard
Adds fat that conducts heat well and helps the apples and onions brown without burning quickly.

The step that matters

Heat the fat before adding the apples and onions. Hot fat sears the surface of the apples and onions so they brown. If the pan is not hot enough, the moisture released from the fruit and vegetables steams them instead of browning them.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, 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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