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To Roast Onions

Roasted onions stuffed with butter, pepper, salt, sugar, egg white, and flour, wrapped in paper and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Roast Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Scoop out the hearts of the onions, as they are bitter.

  2. Mix butter with pepper, salt, and sugar, and fill the onions.

  3. Seal the tops with a mixture of egg white and flour.

Wrap and cook

  1. Wrap the onions in 2-3 layers of paper, wetting the last layer.

  2. Place them among the ashes or in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, unwrap and roll in a well-seasoned glaze.

  2. Serve on a tarragon clear juice or with melted butter.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Main vegetable that softens and turns sweet as it cooks inside its wrapping.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the filling, enriching the onion as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the onion surface brown and caramelise.
Egg white
Sets when heated, helping form a firm seal over the filled tops.
Flour
Thickens the egg white mixture so it holds well as a seal.

The step that matters

Wrapping the onions in wet paper. Wetting the last layer of paper keeps it from scorching in the ashes or oven. The trapped moisture lets the onion steam and cook through gently, while the sealed filling stays inside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sugar, egg, flour. 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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