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Scalloped Onions

Scalloped onions are baked onions layered with a butter‑flour‑cream sauce and topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Scalloped Onions

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Onions

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Boil the onions in salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the onions.

Assemble the dish

  1. Layer the onions in a baking dish with bits of butter.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, butter, and enough cream to make a thin batter.

  3. Pour some of the batter over the onions.

  4. Add another layer of onions.

  5. Repeat the layers until the dish is filled.

  6. Top the dish with stale bread crumbs and bits of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the main bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, sweet base when boiled and baked.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture into a batter that sets around the onions.
Cream
Moistens the layers and, with the flour, helps form a custard-like binding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top crumbs brown during baking.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft onions beneath.

The step that matters

Boil the onions until tender. Onions must be fully softened before baking, because the oven only browns the top and will not cook raw onion through; undercooked onion stays sharp and firm.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, bread. 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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