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Boiled Onions

A simple dish of onions simmered in milk and water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,418 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Boiled Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and wash the onions.

  2. Place the onions in a broad-bottomed pan or kettle without stacking them.

Cook

  1. Cover the onions with milk and water.

  2. Simmer slowly until the onions are tender.

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. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Are the main ingredient, becoming tender and sweet as they simmer gently.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness, and its proteins can brown lightly as it cooks.
Water
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the onions and keeps them moist.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly. Keeping the heat low lets the onions soften evenly without the milk scorching or boiling over. A rolling boil can toughen the outer layers and break the milk, so the onions cook unevenly.

“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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