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Stewed Onions

A savory onion dish simmered in butter, flour, cream or milk, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Stewed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil and drain the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until it bubbles.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour and cook until it is lightly browned.

  3. Add the cream or milk and season with pepper and salt, stirring until smooth.

Combine and serve

  1. Remove from heat and pour the sauce over the onions.

  2. Simmer for a few minutes before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Young onions
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they are boiled and then simmered in the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Cooked in the butter, it thickens the sauce so it clings to the onions.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Stirring in the flour and cooking it until lightly browned cooks out its raw taste and lets it thicken the liquid evenly. Adding the cream too early or without stirring can leave lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, 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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