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Onions Baked

A dish of onions baked in buttered parchment and finished with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Onions Baked

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onions Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the onions

  1. Wash the onions but do not peel them.

  2. Place the onions in a saucepan with slightly salted water and boil for 1 hour, adding more boiling water as it evaporates.

  3. Drain the onions and lay them on a cloth to dry.

  4. Wrap each onion in a piece of buttered parchment paper, twisting the top to secure it.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 1 hour or until tender.

  2. Peel the onions and place them in a deep dish.

  3. Brown the onions slightly by basting with butter for 15 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then pour melted butter over them.

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.

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

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the dish itself; cooking softens them and turns their sugars sweet and mellow.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the onions brown lightly when basted.

The step that matters

Boiling the onions with their skins on. Boiling until fully tender cooks the onion through while the skin protects it. Adding boiling water as it evaporates keeps the level steady so the onions do not dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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