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Sauce

Onion Sauce

A sauce made by boiling onions and mixing them with plain white sauce or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Blanch the onions in cold water, then bring to a boil and discard the water.

Cook the onions

  1. Place the onions in fresh water and boil for 1 to 1.5 hours until tender.

  2. Chop the onions finely.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the chopped onions to the sauce or melted butter.

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 + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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
Soften during long boiling and add their mellow flavor and body to the sauce.
Plain white sauce or melted butter
Provides fat and creamy body that carries the chopped onions.

The step that matters

Boil until fully tender. Onions need enough time in boiling water to soften completely. Underdone onions stay firm and sharp, while thoroughly cooked onions become sweet and mild and blend smoothly into the sauce.

“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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