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Fried Onions with Parmesan Cheese

Fried onions coated in a Parmesan‑flavored batter and served with a mustard‑butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fried Onions with Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Peel and slice the onions into ½‑inch thick rounds.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, cream, pepper, salt, and eggs. Beat for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the grated Parmesan cheese and mix well.

  4. Add the onion slices to the batter, coating them evenly.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan until boiling.

  2. Using a fork, take each onion slice out of the batter and fry gently until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fried onions on paper towels and arrange them on a serving plate.

  4. Serve with melted butter mixed with mustard in a sauce‑boat.

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 + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the sweet, tender filling that the batter coats and fries.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and turn golden when fried.
All-purpose flour
Forms the body of the batter that clings to the onion slices.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the coating brown in the frying.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter for a softer coating.

The step that matters

Frying the coated onion slices. Lard that is only just boiling and fried gently lets the batter set and brown evenly while the onion cooks through. Overly hot fat browns the coating before the onion softens, and crowding the pan drops the fat temperature and makes the coating greasy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour, cream, pepper, egg, parmesan cheese, butter):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour, cream, pepper, egg, parmesan cheese, 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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