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Purée of Bombay Onions

A thick custard‑like purée made from simmered Bombay onions, cream, egg yolk, salt, pepper, and lime peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Purée of Bombay Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Simmer the chopped onions until tender.

  2. Mash the onions and pass them through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the onion pulp with cream (or milk with egg yolk), gravy, salt, pepper, and lime peel.

  2. Heat the mixture until very hot and serve.

  3. The consistency should be thick like custard.

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. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + limetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Bombay onions
Provide the main body and sweet flavour of the purée once simmered and mashed.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, making the purée smooth and silky.
Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture like custard when gently heated, adding richness.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat; if the mixture boils or gets too hot, the yolk can scramble and the purée turns grainy instead of smooth and custard-like.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, pepper, lime. 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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