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Stewed Lentils

A simple lentil stew cooked with butter, onion, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Stewed Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Wash the lentils in cold water and soak them for 4 hours or overnight.

  2. Drain the lentils, place them in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and add salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour with the lid off.

Fry the onion

  1. Peel and slice the onion.

  2. In another saucepan, melt the butter, add the sliced onion, and fry until golden, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Combine and serve

  1. Once the lentils are cooked, combine them with the onion and add the stock. Season with pepper and salt, and stir over heat for 10 minutes.

  2. Serve in a hot vegetable dish.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown lentils
Provide the main body and bulk, holding their shape while simmering to form a soft, tender dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while frying the onion to a golden colour.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the lentils.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour as the lentils are finished together.

The step that matters

Frying the onion until golden. Onion sugars brown slowly in fat, and if the heat is too high or it is not stirred, the sugars scorch and turn bitter. Stirring keeps the color even and the flavour sweet.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, 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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