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Baked Onions

Baked onions are onions cooked in butter, covered with oiled paper, baked until browned, served with croutons and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean, blanch, and parboil the onions.

  2. Arrange the onions on a buttered baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with oiled paper and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until browned.

  2. Serve on a platter, garnished with croutons and sprigs of parsley.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 sweet as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the onions brown on the buttered pan.

The step that matters

Parboiling the onions before baking. Parboiling softens the onions partway so they cook through in the oven without staying raw at the centre. Blanching and parboiling also reduce some sharpness, so the baked result turns mild and sweet.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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