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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, vegetables, water, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lentils work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils in several waters until clean.

  2. Soak the lentils in cold water overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the lentils, water, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil without a lid, skimming thoroughly.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables.

  4. Boil for three hours, skimming frequently.

  5. Press the soup through a colander.

  6. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with toasted bread cut into dice.

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. Pepper + lentilstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lentilstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 thickening starch as they break down during long simmering.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat, which carries flavor and gives the soup a richer mouthfeel.
Vegetables
Contribute sweetness, aroma, and body as they soften and dissolve into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the boil. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Removing them early keeps the soup clear and free of bitter or off flavors.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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