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Onions, Spanish, Baked

Whole Spanish onions, in their skins, boiled briefly and then baked wrapped in buttered paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Onions, Spanish, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Boil

  1. Place the onions, with their skins on, in a saucepan of boiling water with salt.

  2. Boil quickly for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the onions and wipe them thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Wrap each onion in buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours, or longer if the onions are very large.

  3. Serve in their skins with cold butter.

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 + 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

Spanish onions
Become soft and sweet as slow baking breaks down their starches and sugars.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness as it melts over the onions while they bake in the paper.

The step that matters

Boil quickly for 1 hour. The onions must stay in boiling water for the full hour so the layers soften through before baking. Underboiled onions may stay firm at the centre and cook unevenly in the oven.

“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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