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Onions, Spanish, Stuffed

A baked dish of Spanish onions filled with liver or meat, onion, breadcrumbs, herbs, and egg, served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Onions, Spanish, Stuffed

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Skin and parboil the onions.

  2. Use a round cutter or small knife to remove the center part of each onion.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix all ingredients except the brown sauce together.

  2. Fill the onions with the mixture.

  3. Baste the onions well with hot butter or dripping.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes, basting frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve with the brown sauce poured over.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver or raw meat
Provides the savoury, rich flavour and body of the filling.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling a soft, cohesive texture.
Spanish onions
Form the edible cups and become sweet and tender as they bake.
Sage or mixed herbs
Add aromatic, herbal flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Baste the onions well with hot butter or dripping. Hot fat coats the onion surfaces, helping them brown and preventing the exposed skin and filling from drying out during baking. Frequent basting keeps the onions moist and evenly coloured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, sage, egg, pepper, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, sage, egg, pepper, sauce. 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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