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Baked Potatoes and Onions

A baked dish of mashed potatoes topped with stewed onions and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Potatoes and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and cut them in half.

  2. Stew the onions until tender, salting them while they stew, using minimal water and not stirring them.

Assemble and bake

  1. Peel and mash the potatoes as usual.

  2. Butter a baking dish and place the mashed potatoes in the dish.

  3. Carefully place the onions on top, pressing the round side into the potatoes.

  4. Add butter on top of the onions.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the mashed base that holds the onions and bakes into a soft, tender layer.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they stew, adding flavor and a tender topping.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the dish taste rich.

The step that matters

Stew the onions without stirring. Minimal water and no stirring let the onions soften and caramelize gently on the pan surface. Stirring or adding too much liquid can make them steam and turn out watery and pale instead of sweet and tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter. 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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