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Onion, Potatoes Mashed with

A boiled onion mash served on toasted bread with a butter‑flour cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Onion, Potatoes Mashed with

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and boil them in salted water until cooked.

  2. Drain the onions in a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the salt and white pepper, then gradually stir in the cream or milk.

  3. Shake the pan constantly while cooking the sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve the onions on toasted bread with the sauce poured over.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Spanish onions
Form the main body of the dish, softening into a soft mash when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the sauce with the flour.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture into a smooth sauce.
Cream or new milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Shake the pan constantly while cooking the sauce. Flour thickens liquid only when its starch is evenly dispersed and heated. Constant movement prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan while the sauce thickens.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, cream, bread. 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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