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Cooking the Onions

A baked onion and rice dish simmered with butter, bouillon, spices, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cooking the Onions

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.

Cook the rice and onions

  1. Drain the onions and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter.

  3. Stew the onions for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent coloring.

  4. Add the rice, bouillon, pepper, nutmeg, and powdered sugar.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Cover.

  7. Place in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 40 minutes until cooked.

Make the puree

  1. Pour the mixture into a fine strainer.

  2. Use a potato masher to force the rice and onions through into a platter.

Finish and serve

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the puree with the cream.

  2. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add the butter.

  5. Keep warm without boiling until ready to serve.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions (in the method)
Soften when stewed and, once pureed, give the casserole its body and sweetness.
Rice
Thickens the puree and gives it a soft, starchy body as it cooks.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished puree.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a smooth, rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Keep warm without boiling. Once the cream is added, boiling can cause it to separate and turn grainy, so the puree should stay hot but below a boil until serving.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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