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Stuffed Onions

A dish of onions filled with cold cooked meat, baked with stock and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil large onions in milk until nearly soft, one for each person.

  2. Remove some of the center of each onion.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the onions with any cold cooked meat you have.

  2. Place the stuffed onions in a pan with a little stock.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with meat gravy.

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 + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  2. Milk + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Large onions
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it cooks.
Milk
Softens the onions while they simmer, giving them a mild, tender texture.
Cold cooked meat
Provides the savory filling that the onion cups hold.
Stock
Adds moisture in the pan so the onions and filling do not dry out while baking.
Meat gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the finished dish when served.

The step that matters

Boil the onions until nearly soft. Onions that are too firm will not hollow out or soften fully in the oven, while overcooked ones tear and lose their shape. Stopping at nearly soft lets the baking finish them evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, meat):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, meat. 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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