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Onion Turnover

A pastry filled with stewed onions and eggs, baked until golden.

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 ↓

Onion Turnover

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the onions finely and boil them in a little water for a few minutes, then drain.

  2. Stew the onions in butter for 10 minutes, adding pepper and salt.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix them with the onions over low heat until the mixture begins to set, then remove from heat.

Make the pastry and assemble

  1. Make the pastry by mixing the wheatmeal, butter, and a little cold water, then roll it out.

  2. Place the onion and egg mixture on the pastry, fold it over, and pinch the edges to seal.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the turnover in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. Serve with gravy.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Set when heated, binding the onion filling into a sliceable mass.
Onions
Provide the main filling bulk and sweetness as they soften in butter.
Wheatmeal
Forms the pastry structure that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp shell.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the pastry and onions brown.

The step that matters

Setting the egg and onion mixture. If the eggs are cooked too long over heat they turn rubbery and watery as they curdle, so the filling should be removed from heat once it just begins to set and will finish firming in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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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