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Puree Op Lentils

A smooth puree made from lentils, carrots, garlic clove, bacon, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Puree Op Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the lentils and stew them in stock with the carrots, garlic clove, bacon, and butter.

  2. Once cooked, pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the puree to the stock, stir well, and skim off any grease 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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lentils + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Break down during stewing to thicken the puree and give it body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the puree.
Bacon
Adds savory flavor and rendered fat to the stew.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Stock
Supplies the cooking liquid that the lentils absorb and puree into a moist texture.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes skins and fibrous bits left after stewing, so the puree becomes smooth instead of grainy. Pressing the solids through also helps them blend evenly into the liquid.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, 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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