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Cheese and Lentil Savoury

A baked dish of lentils, onions, cheese, breadcrumbs, and margarine, seasoned with parsley, pepper, and salt, served with bean gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cheese and Lentil Savoury

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lentils and onions

  1. Wash and pick over the lentils.

  2. Peel and chop the onions.

  3. Cook the onions in a little water with the lentils, stirring frequently.

Make the mixture

  1. Grate the cheese and combine it in a bowl with the partly cooked lentils and onions.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and about 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley.

  3. Moisten the mixture with bean gravy and mix to a soft paste.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a greased tin or pie-dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Place small pieces of margarine on top and bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) until set and golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with bean gravy.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Onion + lentilstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Provides rich flavour and helps bind the mixture as it melts and sets.
Lentils
Supply the bulk and body of the filling, giving a firm, slightly earthy texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together as a soft paste.
Margarine
Adds fat that helps the top brown richly in the oven.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften during cooking.

The step that matters

Moisten to a soft paste. Too little bean gravy leaves the mixture dry and crumbly, while too much makes it wet and slack. Bread crumbs absorb liquid, so the mixture should be soft but still hold its shape before baking.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Lentilsthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, onion, parsley, 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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