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Onions, Fried

Fried onions are small onions cooked in hot fat with a pinch of sugar until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 36% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,747 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Onions, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Boil the small onions until almost done.

  2. Drain the onions and remove the skins.

Fry the onions

  1. Heat enough hot fat in a sauté pan to prevent burning.

  2. Add a pinch of sugar and the onions.

  3. Turn the onions until lightly browned all over.

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 + sugartop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Onion and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 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

Small onions
Form the main body of the dish and turn sweet and savory as they brown.
Hot fat
Conducts heat evenly across the pan and carries flavor, helping the onions brown without sticking.
Sugar
Caramelizes during browning, adding color and a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Turning the onions in the fat. Sugar caramelizes quickly and can burn if the pan is too hot or the fat is too shallow. Enough hot fat spreads heat evenly, so the onions brown lightly all over instead of scorching in spots.

“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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