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Puree of Lentils a LA Reine

A smooth lentil puree cooked with onions, carrots, butter, and 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: 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 ↓

Puree of Lentils a LA Reine

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 and soak them in water for 1 hour.

  2. In a pot, melt the butter and sauté the onion and carrots until soft.

Cook and blend

  1. Add the soaked lentils and water to the pot.

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

  3. Blend the mixture until smooth, then season with salt and pepper.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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 thick texture once cooked and blended.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour from the aromatics.
Onion
Softens and adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks in butter.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour, and help thicken the puree as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmering until the lentils are tender. Lentils must be fully softened before blending, because undercooked lentils stay firm and grainy and will not puree smoothly. Check the texture rather than relying only on the timer.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, 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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