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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made from Egyptian lentils, onion, carrot, parsley, bacon, and milk, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Combine lentils, cold water, onion, carrot, parsley, and bacon in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve using the back of a spoon.

Finish and season

  1. Add milk until the soup reaches the consistency of cream.

  2. Heat the soup again after adding milk, then season with pepper and salt to taste.

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 and sieving to give the soup its body and thickness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the texture, loosening the soup to the desired consistency.
Bacon
Releases fat and savory flavor into the water as it simmers with the lentils.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked lentils and vegetables through the sieve breaks them into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, parsley, milk, 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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