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Spanish Onions and Cheese

A baked casserole of sliced Spanish onions, cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, and water, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spanish Onions and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onions thinly.

  2. Grate the cheese.

Assemble

  1. Arrange the sliced onions in a pie dish in layers.

  2. Sprinkle cheese, pepper, and salt between each layer of onions.

  3. Finish with a layer of cheese on top.

  4. Scatter breadcrumbs over the top layer of cheese.

  5. Cut the butter into small bits and scatter them over the breadcrumbs.

  6. Pour ½ cup of water into the pie dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

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The step that matters

Bake low and slow. Gentle, long heat lets the onions soften and sweeten without scorching, while the water creates steam that keeps them moist.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, 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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