Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Boiled Onions
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel the onions, standing in a draught or near the fire to reduce the smell.
Cook and serve
Boil the onions in salted water for two hours or less.
Serve on a drainer with a little fresh butter added just before serving.
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.
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Onions
- Main vegetable; cooking softens them into a sweet, tender texture.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when added just before serving.
The step that matters
Boiling time. Boiling onions for too long makes them soft, watery and bland, so they break apart. Checking them as they cook helps them stay tender but intact.
“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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