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Spanish Onions and Cheese

A baked casserole of sliced Spanish onions, cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, and water, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spanish Onions and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the onions thinly.

  2. Grate the cheese.

Assemble the pie

  1. Arrange the onions in a pie dish in layers, sprinkling cheese, pepper, and salt between each layer.

  2. Finish with cheese, then scatter breadcrumbs on top.

  3. Cut the butter into small pieces and scatter over the breadcrumbs.

  4. Pour water into the pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 2 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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onions
Form the bulk of the pie and soften into a sweet, tender filling as they bake.
Cheese
Melts into the layers, adding richness and savory flavor and binding the onions together.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the top and helps the breadcrumbs brown as the pie bakes.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp topping that helps the surface brown and gives contrast to the soft filling.

The step that matters

Bake the pie long and low with water in the dish. Slow baking softens the onions fully and lets their sugars caramelize gently, while the added water creates steam that keeps the filling moist and prevents scorching before the onions are tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, 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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