Skip to main content
Main

Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, vegetables, and herbs simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Rinse the lentils under cold water.

  2. In a pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.

  3. Add onion, carrots, celery, and garlic; sauté until softened.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add lentils, water, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until lentils are tender.

  3. Remove bay leaf 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Lentils + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together633 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 protein-based thickening as they soften in the broth.
Onion, carrots, and celery
Build flavor and sweetness as they soften in the hot oil.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savory depth once sautéed.
Olive oil
Carries flavor from the aromatics and adds richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the lentils are tender. Lentils need a gentle simmer to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm, while a hard boil can break them apart and make the texture uneven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, pepper, olive. 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.

More lentil soup recipes

Red 5Carrot 3Green 3 See all 136 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes