Why it works: Bread and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,676 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Sauce for a Turkey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare good gravy and place it in the serving dish.
Make bread sauce and serve it in a separate bowl.
Optionally, add chopped onion to the bread sauce if desired.
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.
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Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,676 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,474 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,934 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sauce):
- Tomatofits better
- Shallotfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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