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Onion Custard

A baked custard made with onions, eggs, milk, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. Fry the onions in fresh butter until soft, then drain them well.

  3. Mince the fried onions as finely as possible.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until very thick and light.

  2. Gradually stir the eggs into the milk, alternating with the minced onions.

  3. Season the mixture with plenty of grated nutmeg and stir well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a deep white dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  2. Serve as a side dish with poultry.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 custard.
Eggs
Set the custard into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that keeps the custard soft and moist.
Butter
Softens the onions and adds rich, savoury fat for flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until very thick and light. Air whipped into the eggs gives the custard lift and a light texture. Eggs that are under-beaten or stirred in too roughly produce a denser, less even set once baked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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