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Onion Sauce

A sauce made from roasted onions, stock, butter, flour, cream or milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion pulp

  1. Roast the onions.

  2. Peel and pulp the roasted onions.

  3. Simmer the pulp in a rich stock with salt, cayenne, port, and vinegar or lemon juice.

  4. Beat in a bit of butter.

Make the white onion sauce

  1. Peel and halve the white onions.

  2. Soak the halved onions in water briefly.

  3. Boil the onions until tender.

  4. Chop and bruise the boiled onions.

  5. In a clean saucepan, combine the chopped onions with butter, flour, salt, and cream or milk.

  6. Stir until it boils.

  7. Rub the sauce through a sieve.

  8. Add more cream or milk to reach desired consistency.

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. Vinegar + port winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour 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
Provide the main body and flavour of the sauce once roasted, boiled, and pulped.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it holds together rather than running thin.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, and lets the cook adjust the final consistency.
Port wine
Adds depth and a touch of sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils. Flour must be heated fully after it meets the liquid so its starch swells and thickens the sauce; stopping early leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, vinegar, port wine, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, vinegar, port wine, 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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