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Lentil Cakes

Lentil cakes are fried patties made from stewed lentils, onion, vermicelli, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Lentil Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lentil mixture

  1. Stew the lentils with the fried onion in just enough water to cover them until they form a thick purée.

  2. Season to taste and stir in the vermicelli.

  3. Form the mixture into 1 or 2 cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the cakes in beaten egg and then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in vegetable butter or regular butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with potatoes and green vegetables.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lentils + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lentils + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Egyptian lentils
Form the thick purée that gives the cakes their body and bulk.
Egg
Binds the cakes and, with the breadcrumbs, helps form a crisp golden coating.
Vermicelli
Adds starch that helps the cakes hold their shape.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Forming and coating the cakes. The purée must be thick and cool enough to shape, and the cakes should be well coated. Loose or warm mixture falls apart and absorbs too much fat, leaving the cakes soggy and fragile in the pan.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, egg, butter. 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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