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Cheese and Lentil Savoury

A baked dish of lentils, cheese, beans, bread crumbs, and fruit, cooked with milk and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cheese and Lentil Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cook the lentils until tender, then drain the lentils.

  2. Melt the margarine in a pan.

  3. Sauté the chopped onion until soft.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the cooked lentils, cheese, bread crumbs, beans, and rice to the pan.

  2. Stir in the milk and sugar, mixing well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  4. Top the dish with sliced fruit.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through and golden on top.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  5. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 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

Lentils
Provide bulk and a hearty, protein-rich body that holds the savory mixture together.
Cheese
Adds savory richness and helps the top brown and turn golden in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add structure, giving the mixture a softer, set texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture and liquid that softens the grains and sets into a custard-like binding.
Margarine
Adds fat for flavor and helps the onion soften and the mixture stay moist.
Rice
Adds starch and body, absorbing liquid and giving a firmer, more substantial texture.

The step that matters

Bake until golden but heated through. The milk and egg-free binding need enough heat to set, while over-baking can dry the mixture and toughen the surface. Watch the color and texture rather than relying only on time.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, lentils, bread, beans, milk, rice, sugar):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, lentils, bread, beans, milk, rice, sugar. 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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