Skip to main content
Main

Lentil Soup

A hearty soup of lentils, carrots, onions, turnips, potatoes, herbs, pepper, salt, and oil or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Boil the lentils in plenty of water for one hour.

  2. Add the grated carrot, onions, turnips, potatoes, mixed herbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. Boil until all ingredients are cooked.

  4. Add the oil or butter, stir well, 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.

  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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 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
Provide the main body and thickness of the soup as they break down during simmering.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding body and creaminess to the broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften in the simmering liquid.
Oil or butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil until all ingredients are cooked. Lentils and root vegetables need enough time in simmering water to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and the soup thin and gritty in texture.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, turnip, potato, 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

Red 5Carrot 3Green 3 See all 136 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes