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Sauce

White Onion Sauce

A sauce made from boiled white onions, butter, cream or milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

White Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and cut them in half.

  2. Place the onions in cold water and cover with more water.

  3. Boil the onions until very tender.

  4. Remove the onions, drain, and press out excess water.

  5. Chop the onions finely and rub them through a sieve or strainer.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the onion puree with melted butter and cream or milk.

  2. Season with salt, bring to a boil, and serve hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Large white onions
Provide the main body and sweet flavour of the sauce once boiled and pureed.
Rich melted butter
Adds fat for smooth richness and a silky mouthfeel to the puree.
Cream or milk
Loosens the puree and adds creaminess, giving a smoother, lighter texture.

The step that matters

Boil the onions until very tender. Onions must be fully softened so they break down into a smooth puree when rubbed through a sieve. Undercooked pieces stay fibrous and leave a grainy sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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