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Stuffed Onions

A dish of boiled onions filled with a meat and breadcrumb mixture, then browned and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Stuffed Onions

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the onions for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the center part, leaving two or three circles.

Fill and cook

  1. Mix the chopped meat with the soaked bread crumbs, beaten egg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Fill the onion shells with the mixture.

  3. Brown the filled onions in a little butter.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the savoury filling that makes up the body of each stuffed onion.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in water, they absorb liquid and keep the filling moist and tender.
Beaten egg
Binds the meat and crumbs together so the filling holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the onion surfaces brown and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Remove the center part, leaving two or three circles.. Cutting too little leaves the shell thick and the filling hard to cook through, while cutting too much tears the layers and the filling leaks out. Keeping two or three intact rings gives a sturdy cup that holds the filling during cooking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, egg, pepper, butter. 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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