Why it works: Onion and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Glazed Onions
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.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Peel and slice the onions.
Place the sliced onions in a baking dish.
Moisten the onions with brown sauce or well-seasoned broth.
Bake in the oven until browned.
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.
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Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,474 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
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