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Stuffed Onions

A dish of onions filled with sausage, breadcrumbs, and egg, then steamed and finished in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and boil them in water for 10 minutes to soften and reduce strong taste.

  2. Drain the onions and remove about half of the insides.

Stuff and steam

  1. Chop the removed insides and mix with sausage meat, bread crumbs, egg, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Stuff the onions with the mixture, heaping it slightly on top.

  3. Place the stuffed onions in a deep pan suitable for steaming and steam for about 1.5 hours.

Brown and serve

  1. After steaming, brown the onions in the oven with the brown sauce poured into the pan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the edible shell that softens during boiling and steaming and holds the filling.
Sausage meat
Provides fat and savoury flavour to the filling as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the filling as it sets during steaming.
Brown sauce
Adds moisture and rich flavour as it reduces and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Boiling the onions before stuffing. Boiling softens the onions and mellows their sharp sulfur compounds, so they cook through evenly during steaming and taste milder. Skipping or shortening this step leaves the shells firm and harsh.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, egg, sauce, 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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