Name: Onion Gruel
Ingredients: 1 sliced onion; 1 tablespoon rolled wheat or bran; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 pint milk

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Onion Gruel

Ingredients

1 sliced onion
1 tablespoon rolled wheat or bran
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pint milk

Directions

Boil the sliced onion and rolled wheat or bran with salt in the milk for 15 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool before eating.
Consume before bedtime for relief from a cold.

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.

Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Onion + wheattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together858 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,418 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).