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Lentil Gravy with Rice

A thickened lentil sauce served over rice or macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lentil Gravy with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Rub the cooked lentils through a colander to remove the skins.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the lentils with the rich milk and cream if using.

  2. Add salt to taste and heat the mixture to boiling.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little cold milk until smooth.

  4. Add the mixture to the boiling lentil mixture to thicken.

Serve

  1. Serve hot over nicely steamed or boiled rice, or with well cooked macaroni.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lentils + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked lentils
Form the body of the gravy and give it its earthy, thick texture once pureed.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, creating a smooth, creamy base for the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the gravy body and a smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the boiling lentils. Flour must be fully blended in cold milk first, then added to boiling liquid while stirring. This lets starch granules swell evenly and thicken without forming lumps.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, flour, rice):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, flour, rice. 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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