Why it works: Sugar and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 36% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,747 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Onions Glace
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a baking tin, melt the sugar until it is brown.
Cook the onions
Add the small onions and cook slowly in the oven.
When they are partly cooked, add the water and continue cooking until done.
Do not cover the baking tin.
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.
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Sugar + oniontop 36% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,747 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 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
- Powdered sugar
- Melts and browns into a caramel that colours the onions and adds deep sweetness.
- Very small onions
- Become tender and sweet as slow cooking softens their starches and concentrates their sugars.
- Water
- Adds moisture that helps the onions cook through and loosens the browned sugar in the tin.
The step that matters
Melting the sugar until brown. Sugar moves from amber to dark brown very quickly, and past that point it turns bitter and burnt. Watching the colour closely keeps the caramel sweet and fully flavoured.
“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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