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Lentil Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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. Soak the lentils in cold water overnight.

Cook the soup

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

  2. Add onion, carrots, and celery; sauté until softened.

  3. Drain lentils and add to the pot with enough water to cover.

  4. Add bay leaf, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until lentils are tender.

  6. 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Lentils + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together727 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

Green lentils
Provide the main body and bulk of the soup as they soften during simmering.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savory base as it softens in the hot oil.
Carrots
Add sweetness and a tender texture as they cook down.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory depth to the soup base as it softens.
Olive oil
Carries flavor from the aromatics and adds richness to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until the lentils are tender. Lentils need a gentle simmer to soften fully; boiling hard can break them apart unevenly, while stopping too early leaves them firm inside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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