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Lentil Cutlets

Lentil cutlets made with lentils, chestnuts, butter, milk, salt, pepper, served hot with whipped egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and chestnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Soak the lentils overnight in cold water.

  2. Drain the lentils and cook them slowly until tender.

  3. Drain the lentils through a colander.

Make and serve

  1. Mix the lentils with the prepared chestnuts, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into individual serving dishes.

  3. Serve hot, topped with whipped egg white.

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 + chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Chestnut + thymetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lentils + thymetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the bulk and body of the cutlets, setting into a soft, cohesive mass when cooked.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mild, sweet, nutty flavour to the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the mixture bind and stay tender.
Egg white
Whipped and used as a light topping that adds airy texture when served.

The step that matters

Cook the lentils slowly until tender. Slow cooking lets lentils soften evenly without splitting or turning mushy. Fully tender lentils blend smoothly with the chestnuts and give the cutlets an even texture.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, thyme, butter, milk, pepper, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, thyme, butter, milk, pepper, egg. 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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