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German Stuffed Onions

A baked dish of onions filled with a mixture of mushrooms, sausage meat, capers, gherkins, parsley, bread crumbs, and stewed tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

German Stuffed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Parboil the onions until slightly tender.

  2. Drain and cut out the centers of the onions.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the onion centers with the mushrooms, sausage meat, capers, gherkins, and parsley.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, seasoning, and stewed tomatoes to the mixture.

  3. Place the mixture into the onion shells.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the stuffed onions in a pan with 1 inch of water.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve with a white sauce.

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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the edible shells that hold the filling and soften as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Sausage meat
Adds savory richness and fat that flavors the filling as it bakes.
Stewed tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the filling from drying out.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich sausage.

The step that matters

Place the stuffed onions in a pan with 1 inch of water.. The water in the pan creates gentle, moist heat so the onions cook through and soften without scorching or drying out before the filling is set.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (capers, bread, mushroom, parsley, meat, pepper, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, bread, mushroom, parsley, meat, pepper, tomato. 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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