Name: Puree of Lentils for Garniture, Conde
Ingredients: Lentils; Carrots; Onions; Celery; 4 tablespoons Espagnole sauce; Butter

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Puree of Lentils for Garniture, Conde

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lentils as directed in a previous recipe.
Remove the carrots, onions, and celery from the lentils.
Drain the lentils and pass them through a fine sieve.
Place the puree in a flat saucepan and add 4 tablespoons of Espagnole sauce.
Reduce the mixture to your desired consistency.
Before serving, stir in a piece of butter.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together505 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together316 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

Swap the lentils

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

Beansfits better
Sesamefits about as well
Lentilsthe original
Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, sauce, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.