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White Lentil Soup

A soup made from lentils, water, onion, celery, parsley, peppercorns, mace, flour, butter, and milk, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils thoroughly.

  2. Combine lentils, water, onion, celery, and parsley in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface.

Cook and strain

  1. Add peppercorns and mace.

  2. Simmer until tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve or colander into a basin.

Finish the soup

  1. Melt butter in the saucepan.

  2. Stir in milk and flour until it boils.

  3. Pour the soup into the saucepan.

  4. Heat thoroughly.

  5. Season to taste with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together316 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
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during simmering.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow richness to the finished soup.
Butter or dripping
Carries fat into the soup, adding richness and rounder flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture, giving the soup a smoother body.

The step that matters

Stir in milk and flour until it boils. Flour must be cooked while stirring so it thickens smoothly without lumps; the mixture needs to reach a boil to fully thicken and cook out the raw flour taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, onion, celery, parsley, flour, butter, milk):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, celery, parsley, flour, butter, milk. 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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