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Lentil Sausages

A vegetarian sausage made from cooked lentils, onion, herbs, lemon rind, spices, breadcrumbs, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lentil Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lentil mixture

  1. Wash the lentils and place them in a saucepan with water, sliced onion, herbs, lemon rind, nutmeg, and sage.

  2. Boil gently with the lid off until the water is absorbed and the lentils are tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve, season well, and add breadcrumbs if too moist.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape into small sausages or cork shapes, coat in egg and breadcrumbs, and fry in hot oil.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish lined with lace paper, garnished with fried parsley, and offer brown sauce on the side.

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. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Red lentils
Provide the main body and bulk, setting into a firm, sliceable mixture when cooked and sieved.
Egg
Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp outer layer when fried.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb excess moisture in the mixture and form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens and flavours the cooking water.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. Warm lentil purée is soft and sticky, so it is hard to shape and may fall apart. Cooling lets it firm up, and adding breadcrumbs only if it is still too moist keeps the texture holding together in the hot oil.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, onion, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, egg. 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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