Two green-glazed bowls, each with a slice of toast under soft, pale gold onion pieces in a thin, yellow, saffron-tinted broth, with a few saffron threads and specks of black pepper, on a worn grey-painted table. — Onions simmered in ale with saffron, ladled over toast in two green bowls.

Oyle Soppys, Onions in Ale on Toast (1430)

Name: Oyle Soppys
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 400 g onions; 1 l water for boiling the onions; 20 ml olive oil; 475 ml mild ale; 1 tsp sugar; 1/4 tsp ground black pepper; 1 pinch saffron; 1/4 tsp salt; 120 g plain white bread, sliced

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Oyle soppys, medieval onion and ale sops of about 1430: onions boiled, then simmered in ale with a little oil, saffron, pepper and sugar, served over toast.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Nov 1, 2026

Recipe makes: 4 small bowls
Prep: 10 min
Cook: 35 min
Total: 45 min

The onions boil for 10 minutes, then simmer in the ale for 15 to 20. Toast the bread while the seasoning goes in.

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Onions simmered in ale with saffron, ladled over toast in two green bowls.

The story behind the recipe

Three gallons of stale ale to a pint of oil: the cook of Harleian MS. 279 wrote oyle soppys for a big kitchen. A “gode quantyte” of onions, chopped not too small, is boiled in water and lifted out, then boiled “a gode whyle” in the ale with the oil, seasoned with saffron, pepper, sugar and salt, and sent out “alle hote as tostes,” hot, as toasts. Sops are bread soaked in a hot liquid, and the dish is here because bread and beer, by the bushel and the gallon, are what the Odiham roll of 1265 gives its poor.

What did the cook leave unfinished?

The recipe ends in a puzzle. After “as tostes” it adds “as in þe same maner for a Mawlard & of a capon,” as in the same manner for a mallard and a capon, and then two Latin words, hoc quære. The book’s editor, Thomas Austin, glosses them as “look for this; see this.” The words point somewhere else, and Austin doesn’t say where. The onions in ale are complete; the mallard and the capon are left hanging.

The manuscript dates from about 1430 or 1440, generations after Odiham, and nothing ties this spiced dish to the poor’s 34 gallons of beer; it shows what a later English cook did with two things the roll counts in bulk.

Making it today

We serve the onions and their broth over a slice of toast in each bowl, our reading of “as tostes.” Our 475 ml of ale to 20 ml of oil keeps the manuscript’s three gallons to a pint, if its gallon held eight pints. Fresh mild ale stands in for the stale ale, ale that had stood and cleared, and olive oil for an oil the manuscript doesn’t name. “Fryid” is unclear; we warm the oil gently before the ale goes in.

The roll’s herrings came with no recipe. For onions with herring, there is Stewed Salt Herring with Onion (1653). The poor’s Sunday herrings, and what they can and can’t tell us, are the subject of What Did a Medieval Countess Give the Poor to Eat?

Oyle Soppys.—Take a gode quantyte of Oynonys, an mynse hem not to smale, an sethe in fayre Water: ...

Harleian MS. 279 (about 1430)Potage dyvers no. 33, Oyle Soppys, in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin (London: Early English Text Society, 1888), p. 12

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Ingredients

For 4 small bowls. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 small bowls.

Onions400 g
Water for boiling the onions1 l
Olive oil20 ml
Mild ale475 ml
Sugar1 tsp
Ground black pepper1/4 tsp
Saffron1 pinch
Salt1/4 tsp
Plain white bread, sliced120 g

Ingredients as written here

400 g onions
1 l water for boiling the onions
20 ml olive oil
475 ml mild ale
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 pinch saffron
1/4 tsp salt
120 g plain white bread, sliced

Equipment

Two saucepans
Colander
Toaster or grill
Ladle
Four shallow bowls

Instructions

Chop the onions in 1.3 cm pieces, not too small, and put them in a saucepan with enough of the water for boiling the onions to cover them. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes, until they begin to soften. Drain them in the colander and throw the water away.
In the second saucepan, warm the olive oil over low heat until it runs thin, without letting it smoke. Take the pan off the heat and pour in the ale slowly.
Return the pan to the heat, add the drained onions and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onions are tender.
Stir in the sugar, pepper, saffron and salt and simmer for 2 minutes more. Taste for salt.
Toast the bread until golden. Lay a slice in each bowl, ladle the onions and broth over and serve at once.

Nutrition

215calories per serving

Recipe makes: 4 small bowls
Servings: 4

Estimated per serving (4) from USDA SR Legacy values for onion, regular beer, olive oil, sugar and white bread, counting all the ale before simmering.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Keep about 24 parts ale to 1 part oil by volume, as in the manuscript’s three gallons to a pint.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Simmering drives off only part of the alcohol in the ale. For a version without it, use 475 ml vegetable broth and 1 tsp white wine vinegar in place of the ale. Contains wheat and barley (bread and ale).

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.