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Lentils, Boiled

A simple boiled lentil dish with butter, flour, stock, onion, salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lentils, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Soak the lentils overnight in plenty of water.

  2. Drain and cover the lentils with boiling water, adding a little salt.

  3. Boil gently until soft but not broken.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion in the butter until lightly browned.

  2. Add the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Stir in the stock or milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Strain the mixture and add the lentils.

  5. Season to taste and cook gently for a few minutes 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. Lentils + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 texture of the dish once softened by soaking and boiling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onion brown gently in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly with the butter.
Stock or milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding moisture and flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Boil gently until soft but not broken. Lentils cooked at a hard, rolling boil can split and disintegrate, while gentle simmering softens them evenly and keeps them whole. Cooking them in plenty of water also helps them soften without drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, butter, flour, milk, 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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