Name: Sauce Soubise
Ingredients: 4 large white onions; 1 teaspoon butter; Cream Sauce; pinch of sugar; salt; pepper

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 ↓

Sauce Soubise

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the onions into quarters.
Boil the onions in water for about 20 minutes until tender.
Drain the onions thoroughly.
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the drained onions.
Season with sugar, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 (butter, cream, sauce, sugar, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Potatofits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sauce, sugar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.