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Savory Onions

Onions simmered in salted water and beef stock, then topped with a brown sauce made from flour, butter, bouquet, and tomato catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Savory Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onions

  1. Select young onions and place them in a saucepan with ½ cup salted water.

  2. Simmer for 10 minutes, then drain the water.

  3. Pour 1 cup beef stock over the onions and cook for another 10 minutes.

  4. Using a slotted spoon, remove the onions to a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In the same pan, thicken the remaining gravy with 1 heaping teaspoon browned flour mixed with 1 heaping teaspoon butter.

  2. Stir until you have a smooth brown sauce, then season with 1 teaspoon kitchen bouquet, 1 teaspoon tomato catsup, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour the sauce over the onions.

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 + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young onions
Provide the main vegetable body and sweet flavor of the dish.
Beef stock
Supplies the liquid and savory base for the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the onions.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour and butter. Flour needs to be cooked and stirred evenly with the fat and liquid so it dissolves without lumps; unevenly mixed flour clumps and leaves a grainy, uneven sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, flour, 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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