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The Bed Onion

Eggs boiled with onion peelings and finished with a glossy oil coating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

The Bed Onion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the eggs and dry them carefully to avoid cracking.

  2. Place the eggs in a saucepan with plenty of onion peelings.

  3. Add enough cold water to cover the eggs.

Cook and finish

  1. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and let the eggs cool.

  3. Once cool, take the eggs out and wipe them with a towel that has a few drops of oil for a glossy finish.

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. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Egg and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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

Easter eggs
The main ingredient, cooked in the water until set and firm.
Onion peelings
Colour the eggshells as the water absorbs their pigment during simmering.
Oil
Adds a light sheen to the cooled shells when wiped on with a towel.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Simmering rather than boiling hard keeps the eggs from bumping and cracking, and gentle heat sets the whites evenly while the yolks stay tender. Eggs that cook too hard can turn the yolks grey-green on the outside.

“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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