Name: Stuffed Onions
Ingredients: Onions; Salt; Pepper; Cooked chicken, finely chopped; Stale soft bread crumbs; Cream or melted butter; Butter for greasing; Additional buttered crumbs for topping

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Remove the skins from the onions.
Parboil the onions in boiling salted water for 10 minutes.
Turn the onions upside down to cool and remove part of the centers.
Fill the cavities with equal parts of finely chopped cooked chicken, stale bread crumbs, and the chopped onion.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper, and moisten with cream or melted butter.
Place the stuffed onions in a buttered shallow baking pan.
Sprinkle with additional buttered crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the onions are soft.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

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

Swap the onion

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

Potatofits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Onionthe original
Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, chicken, bread, cream, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.