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Onion Soup, Gabbube

A baked onion soup with toasted bread, clarified butter, and beef broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Onion Soup, Gabbube

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Trim the ends off the onions, peel them, and slice them into pieces 1/8 inch thick.

  2. In a flat saucepan, heat clarified butter and fry the onions until they are light brown.

Layer and bake

  1. In a deep baking dish, layer thin slices of toasted bread and a layer of onions, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Continue layering with toast and onions until the dish is full.

  3. Moisten the layers with beef broth and place the dish in the oven to gratinate.

Serve

  1. Serve with a soup tureen of good beef broth.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

White onions
Provide the main body and sweetness of the soup as they cook down.
Clarified butter
Fat for frying the onions, helping them brown evenly without burning.
Thin slices of toasted bread
Soak up broth and hold the layers together, giving the soup body.
Beef broth
Moistens the layers and forms the savory liquid of the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until light brown. Slow, even browning develops sweetness and depth; too high heat can scorch the sugars and taste bitter, while pale onions make the soup flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, bread, beef. 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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