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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, carrot, onion, celery, butter, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. Wash the lentils in several waters. If using whole lentils, soak them overnight.

  2. Melt the butter or dripping in a saucepan.

Cook

  1. Chop the onion and celery, then add them with the lentils to the saucepan.

  2. Simmer over low heat for 5 minutes with the cover on, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Add the cold water, stir well, and simmer for 1 to 2 hours, or until the lentils are soft.

Finish

  1. Pour the soup through a wire sieve, using a wooden spoon to push the vegetables through.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan, season to taste, and bring to a boil 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together316 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 break down during simmering to thicken the soup.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour from the pan into the soup.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aroma and depth to the base.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and colour, and thickens the soup when pushed through the sieve.
Celery
Adds a savoury, aromatic note to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering with the cover on over low heat. Lentils, onion and fat can scorch on the base of the pan if the heat is too high or the pot is left unstirred. Low heat and occasional stirring let the vegetables soften gently and keep the soup from catching and tasting burnt.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Lentilsthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, 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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