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Onions, Stuffed and Baked

Baked onions stuffed with cheese, egg yolks, butter, breadcrumbs, and milk, topped with beaten egg and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Onions, Stuffed and Baked

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 the onions and boil them until tender, then drain on a sieve until nearly cold.

  2. Cut the top off the onions, about 1.5 inches, and scoop out the center.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the cheese, minced egg yolks, butter, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and milk until well combined.

  2. Stuff the onions with the mixture, then brush the tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until nicely browned, about 45 minutes.

  4. Serve hot with brown gravy poured over them.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onions
Form the edible shell that holds the stuffing while it softens and sweetens in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and milk to give the stuffing body and help the top brown.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and add richness and a firmer set when baked.
Parmesan or cheshire cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the stuffing brown on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Boil the onions until tender but not falling apart. Onions must be soft enough to eat and to scoop, yet hold their shape. Draining until nearly cold lets them firm up so the stuffing can be packed in without tearing the shell.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, butter, bread, pepper, milk. 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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