Name: Lentils a LA Creme
Ingredients: 1 pint lentils; salt; ½ teacup thick cream; pepper

Why it works: Lentils and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentils a LA Creme

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

1 pint lentils
salt
½ teacup thick cream
pepper

Directions

Prepare

Soak the lentils in cold water overnight.

Cook and finish

Boil the lentils in salted water for 3 hours.
Strain the lentils and add the thick cream, pepper, and salt if needed.
Simmer gently for 5 minutes and 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.

Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together812 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Lentils + creamtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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: Form the bulk of the dish and set into a soft, thick texture when cooked.
Thick cream: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the cooked lentils.