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Onion Relish

A savory relish made with onion, celery juice, mustard, Tabasco, salt, celery seed, egg yolks, butter or oil, capers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Onion Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grind the celery and press to extract the juice.

  2. In a bowl, combine the onion, celery juice, mustard, Tabasco sauce, salt, celery seed, and beaten egg yolks.

Make the relish

  1. Blend in the melted butter or olive oil.

  2. Add the capers and strong vinegar, mixing well.

Serve

  1. Serve as a relish for venison, wild game, lamb, duck, or fresh fish.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Celery + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help the fat blend smoothly into a creamy base.
Butter or olive oil
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the relish.
Strong vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that cuts the richness and balances the flavours.
Capers
Add briny, tangy bursts of flavour that sharpen the relish.
Onion
Contributes pungent aroma and savoury bite.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency that complements the vinegar and onion.

The step that matters

Blending in the melted butter or olive oil. Fat added to beaten egg yolks must be incorporated gradually and evenly. Egg yolks act as an emulsifier, so a steady blend keeps the fat suspended instead of separating into greasy droplets.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, sauce, egg, butter, capers, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, sauce, egg, butter, capers, vinegar. 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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