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Lentil Soup

A simple lentil soup made with mashed lentils, tomato juice, water, butter, and salt, optionally garnished with parsley and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 322 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Combine the mashed lentils, tomato juice, and water in a pot.

  2. Add the butter and salt to taste.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. If desired, add chopped parsley and onions 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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lentils + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed lentils
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during simmering.
Tomato juice
Adds liquid and a tangy acidity that balances the earthy lentils.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, tomato, butter, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, tomato, butter, onion. 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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