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Onions Fried

Fried onions seasoned with salt, pepper, sauce, and a touch of flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onions Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the desired number of onions.

  2. Heat plenty of lard or pork fat in a frying pan.

Fry the onions

  1. Add the onions and season with salt, pepper, and sauce to taste.

  2. Stir frequently and chop the onions finer while frying.

  3. When nearly done, sprinkle a little flour over the onions and stir well to cook the flour and break up any lumps.

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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the main body of the dish.
Lard or pork fat
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and flavour to the onions.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices and helps the onions cling together.

The step that matters

Sprinkling in the flour. Added too early or in one clump, flour can scorch or form lumps. Adding it near the end and stirring well lets it cook through and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, sauce, flour. 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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