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Puree of White Onions

A smooth puree made from cooked white onions, veal stock, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Puree of White Onions

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scald the onions and slice them.

  2. Stew the sliced onions with blond de veau, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  3. Once cooked, pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Add sugar to taste and serve hot with meat.

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

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

  2. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  3. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + sugartop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
Form the main body of the puree, providing the sweet, savory base once softened and strained.
Blond de veau (light veal stock)
Adds savory depth and moisture as the onions stew, helping them soften into a rich mixture.
Sugar
Rounds out the flavor, adding gentle sweetness to balance the onions to taste.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Straining after stewing removes fibrous bits so the puree becomes smooth. Pushing firmly through the sieve gives a silkier texture than leaving any fibers behind.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, 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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