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German Lentil Soup

A hearty soup of lentils, onions, turnip, parsnip, and Odin seasoning, simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

German Lentil Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils.

  2. Soak the lentils overnight in hot or cold water.

  3. Discard the soaking water.

  4. Wash and peel the vegetables.

  5. Halve and quarter the vegetables.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, bring the boiling water to a boil and add the lentils.

  2. Add the vegetables to the pot.

  3. Boil until all ingredients are thoroughly cooked, adding more water if necessary.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Rub the strained mixture through a wire sieve back into the saucepan.

  3. Reheat the soup.

  4. Add the Odin seasoning.

  5. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  6. Serve the soup.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + lentilstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the main body and thickness, as their starch softens during long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften and break down into the broth.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and body as it cooks and breaks down into the soup.
Parsnip
Contributes natural sweetness and a thicker, smoother texture when puréed.

The step that matters

Rubbing the strained mixture through a sieve. Pushing the cooked solids through a fine sieve breaks them into a smooth purée that thickens the soup. Skipping this or using a coarse sieve leaves it thin and grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, parsnip, pepper, lentils):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, parsnip, pepper, lentils. 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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