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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, onions, carrots, turnips, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash lentils thoroughly and add them to the water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and let the lentils gently simmer on the side of the stove.

Brown the vegetables

  1. Slice the onions, carrots, and turnips into shreds.

  2. In a frying pan, melt the butter and add the sliced vegetables. Stir gently until they are light brown.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the browned vegetables to the lentils and let the mixture simmer for three hours.

  2. Before serving, stir in the milk for added flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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 thickness of the soup as they break down during simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when browned in butter.
Butter
Carries the vegetables in the frying pan and helps them brown for richer flavor.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color as they soften in the soup.
Turnips
Add a mildly sharp, earthy flavor and firm texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Browning the vegetables in butter. Stirring gently until light brown develops savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pale or burnt vegetables will change the soup's taste, so watch the color closely.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Lentilsthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, carrot, turnip, pepper, butter. 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.

More lentil soup recipes

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