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Onions, Glaces

A dish of sautéed onions simmered in stock until glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Onions, Glaces

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the onions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Sprinkle in salt or sugar as desired.

  3. Place the onions in the pan, side by side, with stalks facing up.

  4. Pour stock over the onions until they are half-covered.

  5. Stew uncovered on high heat at first, turning the onions with a fork one by one.

  6. Reduce heat when onions are half done and reduce the sauce until nearly dried up.

Glaze and serve

  1. Dress the onions on a dish carefully to avoid breaking them.

  2. Mix the remaining sauce well and pour over the onions.

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 + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + oniontop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 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

Onions
Become sweet and tender as their sugars concentrate during slow stewing.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour to the pan and the finished glaze.
Stock
Cooks the onions gently and reduces into a savoury glaze that coats them.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce after the heat is lowered. Sugars in the onions and stock caramelise and can scorch once the liquid is nearly gone. Lowering the heat at the halfway point lets the sauce thicken into a glaze without burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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