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Lentil Soup

A hearty lentil soup simmered with mace, celery, parsley, onion, peppercorns, and finished with a roux of butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Wash lentils well in several waters.

  2. Put lentils into a pot with water, onion, mace, parsley, peppercorns, and a little salt and pepper.

  3. Boil gently for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve using the back of a wooden spoon.

Finish the soup

  1. Rinse the saucepan, add butter, and then add flour; blend well.

  2. Gradually add milk to the mixture.

  3. Add the strained soup back to the pot and bring to a boil.

  4. Serve with fried bread or toast.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lentils + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together316 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the main body and thickness of the soup as they break down during simmering.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, lightly bound base for the soup.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a rounded flavour to the thickened base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour when blended into the roux.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the flour and butter. Adding milk gradually while stirring keeps the starch smooth; adding it all at once can trap lumps of flour that do not dissolve evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, celery, parsley, onion, flour, butter, milk):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, celery, parsley, onion, flour, butter, milk. 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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