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To Stew Onions

A dish of onions stewed in butter, gravy, ketchup, pepper, salt, and optional cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the onions and flour them.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the onions in good fresh butter until light brown.

  2. Place the fried onions in a stewpan with gravy, ketchup, pepper, salt, and cayenne if desired.

  3. Cover and simmer over gentle heat for 1.5 hours.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Onions
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and sweet as they cook slowly.
Flour
Coats the onions so they brown in the butter and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fat that carries the browning and adds richness to the onions.
Gravy
Liquid that moistens the onions and forms the sauce during simmering.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that give the sauce depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the floured onions in butter. Onions must reach light brown without burning, because gentle browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, while scorched flour and butter turn bitter. Keep the heat moderate and stir often.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, ketchup, pepper. 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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