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Ceeamed Onions

Caramelled onions simmered in butter and milk, seasoned with sugar, salt, and pepper.

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

Ceeamed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onions

  1. Place the peeled onions in a saucepan and cover with boiling water.

  2. Add the sugar and boil until nearly done.

  3. Add the salt and boil for a few more minutes, then drain in a colander.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, then add the flour and stir for 2 minutes.

  2. Add the hot milk and cook for 2 more minutes, seasoning with whole pepper and salt.

Serve

  1. Put the onions in a serving dish and pour the sauce 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.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Provide the main body and mild sweetness of the dish once softened by boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter. Cooking the flour briefly in the fat coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly when hot milk is added, preventing lumps in the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, milk, 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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