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Sauce

White Onion Sauce

A sauce made from boiled onions, butter, consommé, plain sauce, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

White Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and cut the onions in half.

  2. Soak the onions in a basin of water.

  3. Boil water in a large saucepan. Add the onions with salt to the boiling water.

  4. Drain the onions.

  5. Transfer the onions to another pot of boiling water and boil until very tender.

  6. Drain the onions again.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the onions in a saucepan with butter and stir until well mixed.

  2. Stir in a ladle of consommé and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Add plain sauce and continue stirring until well boiled.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Add boiled cream gradually.

  6. Season with a little salt. Heat until very hot before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 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 + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 bulk of the sauce, and when cooked and sieved they give it body and sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it cooks with the onions.
Consommé
Adds savoury depth and liquid to loosen the onion mixture.
Plain sauce
Thickens the mixture and adds body once boiled together with the onions.
Boiled cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the very soft onions through a fine sieve breaks down the fibres and produces a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, cream):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, cream. 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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