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Puree of Onions

A smooth onion puree made by boiling onions in milk and water, then thickening with flour and butter and adding béchamel and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Cut up the onions.

  2. Boil the onions in a mixture of milk and water.

  3. Boil until the onions are tender.

  4. Strain the onions.

  5. Return them to the pot.

Make the puree

  1. Pass the mixture through a tammy or fine sieve.

  2. Thicken the puree with flour and butter.

  3. Add béchamel sauce and cream according to your needs.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Form the main body of the puree and provide its sweet, mild flavour when cooked soft.
Milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy background to the cooking liquid.
Flour
Thickens the puree by absorbing liquid and swelling when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to form a thickening roux.
Cream
Adds fat and body, making the puree smoother and more velvety.

The step that matters

Thicken the puree with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked with the butter for a few minutes before the puree is added, otherwise it keeps a raw, pasty taste and may form lumps. Cooking it briefly lets the starch swell evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sauce, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sauce, cream. 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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