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Lentil Soup

A simple lentil soup made with lentils, carrot, onion, fat, water, flour, and herbs.

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

  1. Soak the lentils overnight and wash them well.

  2. Scrape and chop the carrot and onion.

Cook the soup

  1. In a saucepan, heat the dripping, then add the vegetables, lentils, and flour.

  2. Stir for 5 minutes until the fat is absorbed.

  3. Add the warm water and some herbs tied in muslin.

  4. Boil for at least 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  2. Reheat and 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 + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 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. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 thickening of the soup as they break down during boiling.
Flour
Thickens the soup by absorbing fat and swelling in the hot liquid.
Dripping
Carries flavour and helps the vegetables and flour cook without sticking.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens and sweetens in the fat.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body, softening into the purée when sieved.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the fat. Stirring the flour with the hot fat coats the starch grains so they hydrate evenly rather than forming lumps when the water is added, giving a smooth, well-thickened soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, flour. 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

Red 5Carrot 3Green 3 See all 136 →

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