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Lentil Vegetable Soup

A soup made with lentils, carrots, parsnip, turnip, onion, and optional butter, spices, and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and turnip 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 ↓

Lentil Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils overnight in cold water.

  2. Chop the carrot, parsnip, turnip, and onion into small pieces.

  3. In a pot, combine the soaked lentils and chopped vegetables.

Cook and season

  1. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and cook for three hours.

  2. Season with salt, black pepper, and butter, or with Nepal pepper, paprika, and sherry wine before serving.

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. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  3. Lentils + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lentils + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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 of the soup as they soften during long cooking.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color as it softens and releases its sugars.
Parsnip
Adds earthy sweetness and body as it breaks down during simmering.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture to the broth as it cooks.
Onion
Builds savory depth as its sugars soften and mellow during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook and season. Long simmering needs enough water to keep the ingredients covered so the lentils cook evenly without scorching. Seasoning near the end lets the flavors concentrate, so tasting before serving helps balance salt and pepper.

Swap the onion

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

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

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