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Baked Onions

Baked onions are onions boiled, wrapped in buttered paper, baked, browned, and finished with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Boil

  1. Wash and clean the onion without peeling it.

  2. Boil the onion in slightly salted water for 45 minutes, adding more boiling water as needed.

  3. Drain the water and dry the onion on a cloth.

Bake and finish

  1. Wrap the onion in buttered tissue paper, twisting the top closed.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes or until tender.

  3. Once tender, peel the onion and place it in a small deep dish.

  4. Brown the onion slightly and baste with melted butter for 10 minutes.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then pour one spoonful of melted butter over the onion.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onion
Becomes soft and sweet as it cooks, forming the whole dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onion brown while basting.

The step that matters

Boil the onion without peeling it. Keeping the skin on while boiling holds the onion together and retains moisture. Boiling until it is fully tender before baking ensures the centre softens evenly in the slow oven.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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