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Onion Pie

A baked pie made with sliced onions, white sauce, and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and wash the onions, then cook them in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Strain the onions and cut them into slices.

Layer and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer the onions, a little white sauce, and mashed potatoes.

  2. Repeat the layering until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of mashed potatoes on top.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until heated through and 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Spanish onions
Provide the main filling, becoming soft and sweet when cooked until tender.
Potato (mashed)
Forms a soft, starchy layer that adds body and a smooth texture to the pie.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the layers from drying out during baking.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions until tender before layering. Onions that are not fully softened stay firm and sharp, and they will not finish properly during the short baking time. Draining them well also prevents excess water from making the pie soggy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sauce. 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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