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Stewed Onions

Stewed onions simmered in stock with Bovril, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the onions and place them in a stew pot.

  2. Pour ¾ cup of stock over the onions.

  3. Add 2 teaspoons of Bovril.

  4. Stew gently until the onions are tender.

  5. Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter.

  6. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 dish, becoming soft and sweet as they stew.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently softens the onions and carries flavour.
Bovril
Adds a concentrated savoury, meaty depth to the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky finish to the stewed onions.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the onions are tender. Gentle heat lets the onions soften evenly and release their sugars slowly, so they turn sweet without scorching or breaking apart. Vigorous boiling can make them ragged and the liquid too reduced.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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