Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Onion Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the onions
Peel the onions and boil them in equal parts milk and water without adding salt.
Once soft, drain the onions in a colander.
Finish the sauce
Chop the onions finely and place them in a pan.
Add butter, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Onion + milktop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,418 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 main body of the sauce and add mild sweetness as they soften.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and richness, and gives the onions a smooth, mild base to soften in.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a rich flavour and a smooth, glossy texture.
The step that matters
Boiling the onions in milk and water. Milk can scorch on the base of the pan and boil over, so a gentle simmer helps. The onions need to be fully soft before draining, so the sauce has a smooth texture when chopped.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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