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Boiled Lentils

A simple boiled lentil dish with herbs, onion, garlic, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and boil

  1. Soak the lentils in water for a few hours.

  2. Drain the lentils.

  3. Place the lentils in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain the lentils.

  6. Add the sweet herbs, onion with cloves, and boiling water to cover.

  7. Boil gently until tender.

  8. Drain again.

Season and serve

  1. Add a lump of butter and chopped parsley.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Toss over heat for a few minutes.

  4. Serve the lentils on a hot dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Lentils + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together210 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
Form the bulk of the dish and set the main texture once simmered until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating to the cooked lentils.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and aroma to the simmering water.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, clove, butter, parsley, 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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