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Bermuda Onions Au Gratin

Bermuda onions are boiled, topped with béchamel, breadcrumbs, butter, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bermuda Onions Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and boil the Bermuda onions in milk and water until done.

  2. Drain the onions on a sieve and cut them in half crosswise.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the cut side up on a buttered baking pan.

  2. Season the onions and cover them with a spoonful of béchamel sauce.

  3. Sprinkle with fresh bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  4. Brown in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter garnished with sprigs of fried young 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Bermuda onions
Become tender when boiled, then provide the sweet, soft base of the gratin.
Béchamel sauce
Adds creamy moisture that keeps the onions from drying out in the oven.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they brown in the hot oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown.

The step that matters

Brown in a hot oven. The topping needs enough heat to brown without drying the onions. Too low and the crumbs stay pale and the sauce weeps; too long and the top scorches before the onions are heated through.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, sauce, bread, 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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