Name: Lentil or Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup lentils or beans; 4 cups water; 1 onion, chopped; 2 carrots, diced; 2 celery stalks, diced; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons olive oil

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lentil or Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Rinse the lentils or beans under cold water.
In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.
Add onion, carrots, celery, and garlic; sauté until softened.

Simmer and serve

Add lentils or beans and water; bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until tender.
Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lentils + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together633 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils or beans: Provide the main body and protein-rich bulk of the soup as they soften in the broth.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it sautés, building the flavour base of the soup.
Carrots: Add sweetness and a tender texture as they cook down in the pot.
Celery: Adds aromatic depth and a soft texture to the soup base.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens with gentle sautéing.
Olive oil: Carries flavour from the aromatics and helps them soften evenly in the pot.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Lentils and beans need gentle simmering to soften fully. Boiling hard can break them apart, while stopping early leaves them firm and unevenly cooked.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, pepper, olive):

Cuminfits better
Parsleyfits better
Turmericfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, pepper, olive. 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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Lentil or Bean Soup