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Lentils with Rice

A simple dish of boiled lentils combined with rice, sautéed with butter and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,221 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentils with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lentils and rice

  1. Boil the lentils as directed in the previous recipe.

  2. Wash the rice and add it to a large kettle of boiling water.

  3. Boil rapidly for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the rice in a colander and let it dry at the oven door for 10 to 15 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and cook until golden brown.

  3. Add the lentils and rice to the pan, stir over the heat for 15 minutes, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lentils + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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

Lentils
Provide the main body and protein-rich texture of the dish.
Rice
Adds bulk and a soft, starchy texture that absorbs the flavors of the pan.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor as it cooks the onion.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add sweetness and savory depth.

The step that matters

Drain the rice and let it dry. Leaving surface water on the cooked rice makes it gummy when it is fried; letting it dry at the oven door helps the grains stay separate in the pan.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, onion, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, onion, 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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