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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup of lentils, ham, onion, carrot, and bay leaf, finished with butter and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Soak lentils overnight.

  2. Drain the lentils.

  3. Cover the lentils with cold water.

  4. Bring the water to a boil for 1 hour.

  5. Drain the lentils again.

  6. Cover the lentils with boiling water.

Cook the soup

  1. Add ¼ teaspoon baking soda, ham, bay leaf, onion, and carrot.

  2. Cook until lentils are tender.

  3. Remove the ham.

Finish the soup

  1. Press the lentils through a colander.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Add cream or milk to achieve desired consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down when pressed.
Ham
Adds savory, smoky flavor to the broth during cooking.
Baking soda (in the method)
Raises the pH of the cooking water, helping lentils soften more quickly.
Onion
Builds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks into the soup.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the soup base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Press the lentils through a colander. Pressing softened lentils breaks them down into a smooth purée that thickens the soup. Pressing them before they are fully tender can leave grainy, unbroken pieces.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, pepper, butter, carrot, cream):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, pepper, butter, carrot, cream. 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.

More lentil soup recipes

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