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Puree of Lentils

A creamy lentil puree soup made with ham, vegetables, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils in water overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the soaked lentils and bouillon with the onion, carrot, celery, and ham.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, about 2 hours.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve to strain.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the strained soup and stir in the butter.

  2. Season with pepper, nutmeg, and salt if needed.

  3. Serve with croutons or small pieces of frankfurt sausages.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

German lentils
Provide the main body and thickness once cooked and pureed.
Common bouillon
Adds savory flavor as the liquid the lentils cook in.
Ham or ham bone
Contributes smoky, savory depth to the broth during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked lentils through a sieve breaks them down into a smooth puree. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy and thin, since whole lentil skins and fibres do not thicken the liquid.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Lentilsthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, ham, butter, egg, 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.

More lentil puree recipes

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