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Stuffed Onions

A dish of parboiled onions filled with a mixture of mushrooms, sausage, breadcrumbs, capers, gherkins, herbs, pepper, salt, and stewed tomatoes, baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions

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 filling

  1. Remove the centers from the onions.

  2. Mince the onion centers with the mushrooms, sausage meat, breadcrumbs, capers, gherkins, herbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir in the stewed tomatoes.

Bake and serve

  1. Carefully fill the onions with the mixture.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Serve with any white savory sauce.

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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Onions
Hollowed shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake, becoming tender and sweet.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the minced filling so it holds its shape.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savory flavor, and sets firm as it cooks through.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savory flavor to the filling.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that balance the rich sausage and onion.

The step that matters

Carefully fill the onions with the mixture. Onion shells are fragile and can tear or split when hollowed and filled. Packing the filling gently keeps the shells intact so the mixture bakes evenly and holds its shape.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom, meat, pepper, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom, meat, pepper, tomato. 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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