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Boiled Onions

A dish of boiled onions finished with cream, milk, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Boiled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Skin the onions thoroughly.

  2. Boil the onions in water for a few minutes.

  3. Pour off the water.

  4. Add clean cold water.

  5. Boil again.

  6. Repeat pouring off the water and adding cold water until the onions are done.

  7. Drain the onions.

  8. Dress the onions with a little cream, salt, and pepper to taste.

  9. If the onions are large, cut them into quarters.

  10. Pour 1 cup of scalding milk with a pinch of baking soda over the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of corn-starch mixed with milk to the pan.

  3. Add minced parsley to the pan.

  4. Simmer the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the onions 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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and mildly sweet when boiled.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the onions.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and creaminess.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a glossy texture to the sauce.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth body.
Baking soda
Raises the alkalinity of the cooking liquid, helping onions soften and stay pale.

The step that matters

Changing the boiling water repeatedly. Onions release sharp sulfur compounds and bitter flavors into their cooking water. Pouring that water off and adding fresh cold water each time removes much of this harshness, so the onions taste milder. Stopping early leaves the flavor sharp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, milk, butter, corn, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, milk, butter, corn, parsley. 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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