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Sauce

Onion Sauce

A sauce made from onions, milk, flour, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and quarter the onions.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and cover with water.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook until the onions are tender.

  4. Strain the onions, discarding the water.

  5. Chop the onions finely on a board.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter, add the flour, and stir until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Add the chopped onions, spices, and herbs, and season with salt and pepper.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the main body and sweet, mellow flavour of the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the roux base.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding milk gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour and fat evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, flour, clove, allspice, 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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