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Split Lentil Soup

A simple lentil soup with onion, carrot, turnip, butter, 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: Lentils and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Split Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils in warm water overnight and pick them over.

  2. Soak the lentils in 2 quarts of cold water for 12 hours.

Cook and finish

  1. The next morning, stew the lentils with the washed, peeled, and sliced onion, carrot, and turnip.

  2. After 3.5 hours, strain the mixture through a colander or sieve, using a large spoon to pulp it.

  3. Return the soup to the saucepan, add the butter, pepper, and salt, and warm it without boiling 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.

  1. Lentils + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Split lentils
Break down during stewing to thicken the soup and give it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and sweetness as it stews with the lentils.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and color while softening into the stew.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavor and soft texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Warm the soup without boiling. Boiling after the butter is added can cause it to separate and make the soup greasy, and it can dull the fresh flavors. Gentle heat keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, turnip, butter, 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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