Name: Stewed Onions
Ingredients: 6 large onions; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 2 tablespoons chopped eschalot; ¼ cup button mushrooms, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 quarts white stock

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Peel the onions and cut off the tops and bottoms without breaking them apart.
Blanch the onions in 2 quarts of boiling water for 20 minutes.
Drain the onions and remove the center of each onion.
Fill each onion with a mixture of meat, parsley, eschalot, and mushrooms.
Butter the outside of the onions and place them in a stew pan with white stock.
Simmer over low heat, turning occasionally, until tender and glazed.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).