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Lentil Curry

A lentil curry made with boiled lentils, onions, butter, and prepared curry sauce, served over plain boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,221 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lentils

  1. Boil the lentils in water until soft and pulpy.

  2. Set them aside.

Make the curry

  1. Slice the onion into thin rings.

  2. Fry the onion in butter until golden.

  3. Add the prepared curry sauce to the onions.

  4. Stir in the lentils.

  5. Let it boil for about 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain boiled rice.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lentils + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together77 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Break down into a soft, pulpy base that thickens the curry and gives it body.
Onion
Softens and browns into sweetness and savoury depth when fried until golden.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the onions brown evenly.
Curry sauce
Supplies the spiced flavour and liquid that the lentils and onions are simmered in.

The step that matters

Frying the onion until golden. Onions need enough time over heat to caramelise, which builds sweetness and depth. If they are pushed too hot, they scorch and turn bitter, so the curry tastes harsh.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, sauce):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, sauce. 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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