Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Baked 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.
Wash the onions but do not peel them.
Boil the onions in salted water for 1 hour, changing the water twice.
Once tender, place the onions in a baking pan.
Bake the onions at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.
Serve with melted butter.
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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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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