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Stuffed Onions, American Style

Stuffed onions filled with bread crumbs, mushrooms, herbs, and sauce, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions, American Style

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.

Prepare the onions

  1. Prepare the onions by draining and cooling them.

  2. Scoop out the center of each onion.

  3. Chop the onion finely.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chopped onion with bread crumbs, mushrooms, fine herbs, Espagnole sauce, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the onions.

Bake

  1. Arrange the stuffed onions in a buttered flat saucepan.

  2. Sprinkle additional bread crumbs on top.

  3. Place a small piece of butter on each onion.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until nicely browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the edible shell and provide the main body and sweetness of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds together when baked.
Espagnole sauce
Adds savory depth and moisture to the filling.
Fresh mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savoriness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Onions must cook through and the crumb topping and butter need enough heat to brown. Too low a heat leaves the onions raw inside and the top pale, while overbaking dries the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, mushroom, sauce, parsley, pepper, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mushroom, sauce, parsley, pepper, 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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