Skip to main content
Main

Tomato and Lentil Soup

A hearty soup of tomatoes, lentils, vegetables, and bacon simmered in stock and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lentils and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tomato and Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils.

  2. Soak the lentils for 12 hours.

  3. Drain the lentils.

  4. Slice all the vegetables.

  5. Dice the bacon.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the bacon and all the vegetables except the tomatoes. Cook slowly for a few minutes.

  3. Add the tomatoes and lentils. Cover the pot. Steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Add the stock or water. Add the bouquet-garni, peppercorns, and cloves.

  5. Simmer for 3 hours or until the lentils are tender.

  6. Strain the soup. Return the strained soup to the saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with a little stock or milk.

  2. Add the mixture to the boiling soup. Stir the soup.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes to cook the flour.

  4. Season to taste. 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. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lentils + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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 bulk, softening into the soup as they simmer.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fruity flavour to the soup base.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness when melted with the vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the strained soup as it cooks in the boiling liquid.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky depth to the soup base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the soup's flavour.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the soup. Flour clumps if added dry or unmixed. Blending it smoothly with a little liquid first lets it disperse, and simmering a few minutes cooks out its raw taste and thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lentils, ham, butter, flour, onion, carrot. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes