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Another Welsh or Cheese- And- Onion Pudding

A baked dish of onions, cheese, butter, pepper, and sea salt, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Welsh or Cheese- And- Onion Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil, skin, and chop the onions.

  2. Place the onions in a small baking dish.

Season and top

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and plenty of butter.

  2. Cover with slices of toasted Cheshire or Dunlop cheese.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with toasts.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 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, soft body of the dish once parboiled and cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour across the onions.
Cheshire or dunlop cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Covering with toasted cheese. Toasting the cheese before it goes on the onions helps it melt and brown evenly, rather than staying rubbery or greasy, while the hot onions keep the dish warm enough to serve very hot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, cheese. 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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