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And Onions

A dish of sliced boiled beef and onions fried with butter, topped with fried eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

And Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat and onion into 1-inch thick slices.

Cook

  1. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then fry in butter or lard until light brown.

  2. Place the meat and onions on a hot platter.

  3. Fry the eggs in butter, sprinkle with salt, and place one on each slice of meat, keeping the yolk whole.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled beef
Forms the base of the dish, providing the main substance and meaty texture.
Eggs
Add richness and a soft, runny yolk that moistens the meat when broken.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it browns in the fat.
Butter or drippings
Carries heat for frying and encourages light browning on the meat and onion.

The step that matters

Frying the eggs with the yolk whole. Eggs cook quickly at moderate heat, and high heat or overcooking sets the yolk firm and can break it. Keeping the yolk intact preserves its runny, rich texture on the meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, butter, pepper. 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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