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To Deess Spanish Onions

A slow‑cooked onion stew with ham, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Deess Spanish Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the outer skins from the onions, being careful not to cut too much from the stalk or root.

  2. Place the onions in a large stewpan, ensuring they do not touch each other.

  3. Add the ham and butter to the pan.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover the pan and cook on low heat for about 2 hours, turning the onions carefully until all sides are cooked.

  2. Remove the onions.

  3. Glaze the onions.

  4. Thicken the gravy.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  4. Onion + hamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the bulk of the stew and soften into sweetness as they cook slowly.
York ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the butter and onion juices as it cooks.
Butter
Provides fat for gentle browning and carries flavour across the onions.

The step that matters

Cook and finish. Gentle low heat and careful turning let the onions cook evenly without scorching. Crowding or high heat would burn the butter and sugars before the onions become tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, pepper. 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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