Name: Onions Stewed
Ingredients: 4 medium onions; 2 tablespoons butter; ½ cup milk; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Onions Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and quarter the onions.
Boil the onions in water until tender.
Drain the onions and season with butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,418 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 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: Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and sweet when cooked until tender.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour across the softened onions.
Milk: Adds moisture and mild creaminess to the onions as they are seasoned.