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Onion Stuffing

A savory filling made from boiled onions mixed with bread crumbs, sage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Onion Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and cut them into quarters.

  2. Boil the onions in salted water until nearly soft.

  3. Strain and chop the onions finely.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix the chopped onions with bread crumbs, sage, salt, and pepper.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Large onions
Provide the main bulk and moisture, and turn soft and mild-sweet when boiled.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the onions and give the stuffing body and a light texture.
Sage
Adds a warm, savory herbal aroma that defines the stuffing's flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the onions until nearly soft. Boiling softens the onion's cell walls, but overcooking lets the onions take on excess water and turn mushy. Waterlogged onions make the bread crumbs soggy and the stuffing loose, so stop when they are nearly soft.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, 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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