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Savory Lentils

A baked lentil and breadcrumb mixture flavored with sage, parsley, and nut milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savory Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine lentils and bread crumbs.

  2. Moisten the mixture with rich nut milk.

  3. Add sage, minced parsley, and salt to taste.

  4. Transfer to a baking dish and bake until firm.

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. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lentils + sagetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sifted lentils
Provide the main body and structure of the dish as they set when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the mixture so it holds together.
Rich nut milk
Adds moisture that softens the crumbs and lentils and helps them bind.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Bread crumbs and lentils absorb liquid at different rates. Adding the nut milk gradually and stopping once the mix holds together keeps it moist without becoming soggy, so it can set firm in the oven.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sage, parsley):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sage, parsley. 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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