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Onion Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grind the onions finely and press out all the juice.

  2. Add the juice to the sliced tomatoes, ground pine kernels, and beaten egg white.

  3. Serve with any grain.

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 + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + pinetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Onion + pinetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pine + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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 (tomato, pine, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pine, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More onion soup recipes

French 31Brown 15with Milk 7White 5Bavarian 4Bermuda 4 See all 236 →

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