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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked green lentils, vegetables, bouquet garni, stale bread, and optional milk, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils in cold water overnight.

  2. Drain the lentils and place them in a stewpan with water or stock.

  3. Add celery, onions, carrot, turnip, bouquet garni, and stale bread.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off the dark scum that rises.

  2. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for about 4 hours until lentils are soft.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a wire sieve, discarding the bouquet garni.

  2. Rub the remaining ingredients through the sieve into a bowl, using hot liquid to help.

  3. Reheat the soup before serving, adding water if too thick, and stir frequently to prevent burning.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Green lentils
Break down when simmered long, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook.
Stale bread
Acts as a thickener, adding body when rubbed through the sieve.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum as it boils. Skimming the dark scum that rises at the start removes impurities that would otherwise cloud the soup and spoil its flavour and clarity.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, celery, carrot, turnip, bread, milk):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, celery, carrot, turnip, bread, milk. 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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