Name: Savoury Oatmeal
Ingredients: 4 oz medium oatmeal; 2 oz breadcrumbs; ½ lb onions; 1 teaspoon powdered sage; 2 oz margarine; seasoning to taste; about 2 cups onion water

Why it works: Onion and sage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,628 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Savoury Oatmeal

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil onions for 30 minutes, then chop them.
Toast the oatmeal lightly under the grill.

Assemble and bake

Mix all ingredients and add about 2 cups of the reserved onion water.
Place the mixture in a greased pie dish.
Sprinkle with breadcrumbs.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Medium oatmeal: Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the onion water to set into a soft body.
Onions: Add moisture and savory sweetness as they soften and release their liquid.
Breadcrumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.
Margarine: Adds fat for richness and helps the mixture brown.

“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.