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Stuffed Onions, American Style

Stuffed onions filled with bread crumbs, mushrooms, herbs, and sauce, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions, American Style

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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the onions by draining and cooling them.

  2. Scoop out the center of each onion and chop it finely.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mix the chopped onion with bread crumbs, mushrooms, fine herbs, Espagnole sauce, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the onions.

  3. Arrange the stuffed onions in a buttered flat saucepan.

  4. Sprinkle additional bread crumbs on top and place a small piece of butter on each onion.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until nicely browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the edible shell that holds the stuffing and softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body, with extra crumbs adding a browned top.
Espagnole sauce
Adds savory depth and moisture to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the surface and enriches the flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Onions must cook through until tender while the top browns; too little heat leaves them raw and pale, while too much can scorch the crumbs before the centers soften.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mushroom, sauce, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mushroom, sauce, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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