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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made from lentils, carrot, onion, celery, and stock, finished with a puréed lentil base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Wash the lentils in two waters.

  2. Put them into a clean stewpan.

  3. Add 3 quarts of water, bouquet garni, onion, celery leaves, and carrot.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Skim and simmer until the lentils are soft.

  6. Remove the bouquet garni, onion, and carrot.

  7. Drain in a colander.

  8. Pound the lentils in a mortar.

  9. Pass them through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Return the puree to the stewpan with 2 quarts of stock.

  2. Stir until it boils.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour with the lid partly over.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Skim the soup.

Prepare the celery and serve

  1. Cut up the celery leaves.

  2. Boil them in water or stock.

  3. Drain the celery leaves in a colander.

  4. Put the celery into the soup tureen.

  5. Pour the soup over, boiling hot, and serve.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

Small lentils
Break down into a thick puree that gives the soup its body.
Stock
Adds savory flavor and liquid to thin the puree into soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks in the broth.
Carrot
Contributes gentle sweetness and color to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Pass the lentils through a sieve. Cooked lentils must be fully soft before pressing, or the puree stays grainy and uneven. Sieving removes skins and fibrous bits so the soup becomes smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, carrot, clove, celery, pepper. 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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