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Stewed Onions

Stewed onions stuffed with meat, parsley, shallot, and mushrooms, simmered in white stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the onions and cut off the tops and bottoms without breaking them apart.

  2. Blanch the onions in 2 quarts of boiling water for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the onions in a colander.

Stuff and butter

  1. Remove the center of each onion and fill it with a mixture of meat, parsley, shallot, and mushrooms.

  2. Butter the outside of the onions.

Stew

  1. Place the onions in a stewpan with white stock.

  2. Simmer over low heat.

  3. Gently turn the onions occasionally.

  4. When tender and glazed, they are ready to serve.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the edible shell and turn sweet and tender as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside of the onions brown and glaze.
White stock
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the onions moist and adds savory flavor.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savoriness to the filling.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Simmer over low heat and turn gently. Vigorous boiling can break the delicate onion layers apart and make them cook unevenly. Gentle heat lets the centers become tender while the outside softens and glazes, and occasional turning keeps every side in contact with the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, parsley, mushroom, butter. 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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