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Lentil or Linsen Soup

A hearty lentil soup with smoked meat, celery, onion, and a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lentil or Linsen Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and simmer

  1. Wash and soak the lentils overnight in cold water.

  2. Drain and place in a soup kettle with 3 quarts of cold water and the smoked meat.

  3. Cook slowly for 3 hours until the meat and lentils are tender.

  4. Remove the meat and skim the fat from the soup.

Make the onion roux and finish

  1. Chop and fry the onion in hot fat until brown.

  2. Add the flour to the onion and mix well.

  3. Slowly pour in the hot soup stock, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add the mixture to the soup, season to taste, and serve with the reheated smoked meat or croutons.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Break down during the long simmer to thicken the soup and give it body.
Smoked sausage
Releases smoky flavor into the broth as it cooks and becomes tender.
Onion
Browning in hot fat builds sweet, savory depth for the soup base.
Flour
Cooked with the fried onion and stock, it thickens the soup smoothly.
Celery
Adds a mild, aromatic vegetable flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the stock. Adding hot stock slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed. Pouring it in all at once can form lumps that do not smooth out in the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, beef, celery, flour, 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.

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