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Onion Soup, Brown

A savory soup made with brown onions, butter, sugar, and clear brown gravy, optionally thickened with rice or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Onion Soup, Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the onions carefully.

  2. Sprinkle a little sugar on the onions.

Cook

  1. Fry the onions in butter until nicely browned.

  2. Pour the brown gravy soup over the onions.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then let it boil together.

  4. If desired, thicken the soup by stirring in ground rice or flour mixed with cold water.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Silver onions
Provide the main body of the soup and, when browned, a deep sweet flavour.
Sugar
Helps the onions caramelise and brown, adding sweetness.
Butter
Fat that carries the browning of the onions and adds richness.
Brown gravy soup
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Ground rice or flour
Optional thickener that gives the soup body when mixed with cold water first.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until nicely browned. Browning depends on surface heat and sugar caramelising. Pale onions give a flat, weak flavour, so they need enough time in the butter without burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, pepper, rice. 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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