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Onion Broth

A clear broth made from parboiled onions, butter, parsley, pepper, salt, stock, flour, and milk, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Onion Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the parboiled onions lightly in butter with parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the onions to the white stock.

  3. Stir in the flour and then the hot milk.

  4. Press the mixture through a cloth or sieve.

  5. Serve hot with small slices of toast.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Parboiled onions
Provide the main body of flavour and soft texture once fried and pressed.
Butter
Fat that gently fries the onions, adding richness and savoury browning.
White stock
Liquid base that carries the onion flavour through the broth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the broth gains body.
Hot milk
Adds creaminess and softens the broth's flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour before the milk. Flour needs to be stirred into the hot stock so it disperses evenly; added in clumps it forms lumps that a sieve may not fully remove, leaving the broth grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, pepper, chicken, flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, chicken, flour, 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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