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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with carrots, onions, lettuce, butter, lentils, French roll crumbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and lentils share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 51 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup base

  1. Combine carrots, onions, lettuce, and butter in a stew pan.

  2. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the soaked lentils and 1 pint of stock.

  4. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

Cook and strain

  1. Pour in the remaining stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Cook for another hour.

  3. Stir in the crumbs of the rolls and let them soak well.

  4. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve or tammy cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Boil once more.

  3. Serve.

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. Lettuce + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + lentilstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during long simmering.
French roll crumbs
Soak up liquid and help thicken the soup for a smoother, heavier texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the vegetables.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften and break down into the soup.
Onions
Build savoury depth and aroma as they soften in butter.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a wire sieve or tammy cloth. Pressing the cooked soup through a fine sieve breaks down the softened vegetables and lentils into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy, uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, lettuce, butter, lentils, 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.

More lentil soup recipes

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