Why it works: Lentils and butter work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 486 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Potage Maigre a LA Purée De Lentilles
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the lentils
In a large pot, bring 4 quarts of water to a boil.
Add 1½ cups of lentils and a bit of butter and salt.
Reduce heat and simmer gently for several hours until lentils are soft.
Make the purée
Drain the lentils and mash them through a fine sieve, adding some of the cooking liquid.
Incorporate a little essence of lightly browned roots prepared in butter to the purée.
Just before serving, stir in 3 tablespoons of fresh butter.
Top with small croutons that have been toasted in butter.
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.
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Lentils + buttertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together486 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lentils
- Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
- Cooking liquid (in the method)
- Thins the mashed lentils to a soup-like consistency while carrying flavor.
The step that matters
Simmering the lentils until soft. Lentils must cook long enough for their starches and fibers to fully soften; if they stay firm, the purée will be grainy and will not pass smoothly through the sieve.
“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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