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Onions for Frying

Fried onions are sliced onions coated in flour and sautéed until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Onions for Frying

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and coat them lightly with flour.

Fry

  1. Heat a covered stew-pan and add the butter or nut butter.

  2. Fry the onions in very little fat for 5 to 6 minutes until brown.

  3. Drain the fried onions on kitchen paper before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Caramelise and brown during frying, giving the dish its main flavour and texture.
All-purpose flour
Light coating that helps the onions brown and gives a slightly crisp surface.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries heat and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry in very little fat. Frying in a small amount of fat lets the onions brown rather than steam. Too much fat or a crowded pan can stew them, so they lose colour and crispness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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