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Lentil, Pea, Barley, and Rice Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, split peas, barley, rice, carrots, turnip, onion, and stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 109 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lentil, Pea, Barley, and Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash lentils thoroughly.

  2. Soak lentils for 24 hours.

Cook

  1. Combine soaked lentils and stock or water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add grated carrot, grated turnip, minced onion, and rice.

  4. Boil for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lentils + barleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 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
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and add body.
Split peas
Soften as they cook, adding body and thickening the broth.
Barley
Swells and softens during simmering, adding chewy texture and body.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, helping thicken the soup further.

The step that matters

Boiling for 1.5 hours with occasional stirring. Legumes and grains need a long, steady simmer to soften fully. Stirring keeps starches from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot, so the soup thickens evenly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, barley, rice, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, barley, rice, carrot, turnip, onion, 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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