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Scalloped Onions

A baked onion casserole with cream, crumbs, cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Scalloped Onions

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and boil them for 1 hour.

  2. Drain and cut the onions into small pieces.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer some onions in a baking dish, then sprinkle with crumbs, cheese, and bits of butter.

  2. Repeat the layering until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of crumbs on top.

  3. Dot the top with butter, add ½ cup of cream, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, sweet filling as they bake.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the layers become soft and saucy as they bake.
Cheese
Melts between the onion layers, adding richness and savory flavor and helping bind the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Dot the top with butter, add cream, and season. Cream and butter supply the liquid and fat that keep the onions moist during baking; without enough, the dish can dry out and turn tough at the edges.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cheese, 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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