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Lentil Soup

A hearty lentil soup made with water, onions, carrots, parsley, bacon bones, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine lentils, water, onions, carrots, parsley, and bacon bones.

  2. Simmer briskly for about 1 hour, until the liquid is reduced to nearly half.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve to achieve a smooth consistency.

Serve

  1. Heat the soup until very hot.

  2. Serve with fried bread squares.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Bacon bones
Release smoky, salty flavour into the broth as they simmer.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the soup base.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Cooked lentils and vegetables must be pressed fully until smooth; skins and fibres left behind make the texture gritty rather than silky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, carrot, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, 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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