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Lentil Soup with Dressing

A simple lentil soup flavored with butter, onion, stock, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Lentil Soup with Dressing

serves 6

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils for 10 to 12 hours, then wash them well.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the lentils with the chopped onion in some broth until well done.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine metal sieve into a little more broth.

  3. Season to taste and simmer over low heat.

Serve

  1. Serve with croutons or finely chopped parsley, if desired.

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

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

  3. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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 thickness of the soup as they break down during boiling.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil the lentils until well done. Lentils must be fully softened before sieving; undercooked lentils stay grainy and will not pass smoothly through the sieve, leaving a rough texture.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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