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Puree of Onions

A smooth onion puree made by stewing onions with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and broth or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Puree of Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and place them in a stew pan.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg.

Cook and finish

  1. Stew slowly until they turn a fine brown color.

  2. Add broth or warm water.

  3. Stir until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the bulk of the puree and, once slowly browned, its sweet, deep flavor.
Broth or warm water
Adds moisture so the onions can be stirred into a smooth, loose consistency.

The step that matters

Stew slowly until the onions turn a fine brown color. Low, slow heat lets the onions' natural sugars caramelize gradually, building sweetness and color without scorching. Rushing with high heat can burn the sugars before the onions soften, leaving a bitter taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg. 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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