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Curried Lentils

A lentil dish simmered with butter, flour, curry powder, onion, stock, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Curried Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Soak the lentils overnight.

  2. Boil the lentils until tender.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Slice the onion thinly.

  2. Fry the sliced onion in butter.

  3. Add stock or lentil cooking water to the onion.

  4. Add flour.

  5. Add curry powder.

  6. Add salt.

  7. Add pepper.

  8. Simmer for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cooked lentils.

  2. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Form the dish's main body and bulk, softening to a tender texture when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the onion flavour as it fries.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the lentils.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens and browns in butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm spiced aroma that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the fried onion. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter and onion fat before liquid goes in, otherwise it stays raw-tasting and forms lumps instead of a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Kalefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, butter, flour, 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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