Name: Stewed Onions
Ingredients: 6 onions, sliced; water, enough to cover onions; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2-3 tablespoons sweet cream

Why it works: Onion and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Stewed Onions

Ingredients

6 onions, sliced
water, enough to cover onions
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
2-3 tablespoons sweet cream

Directions

Slice the onions and place them in a pot.
Add enough water to cover the onions and cook for 30-45 minutes.
Once cooked, add salt and sweet cream.
If desired, thicken the mixture slightly before serving.

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.

Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 sweetness as they soften and release their sugars during slow cooking.
Sweet cream: Adds richness and fat, giving the stewed onions a smooth, creamy texture.

“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.