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Lentil Soup

A simple soup made with red lentils, onion, celery, butter, water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash lentils in cold water.

  2. Grease the inside of an iron saucepan with butter or dripping.

  3. Peel and quarter the onion.

  4. Wash and cut celery into pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Add onion, celery, and lentils to the saucepan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Pour in the water and stir well.

  3. Let the soup simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  4. Pour the soup through a wire sieve into a basin, rubbing the vegetables through with a wooden spoon.

  5. Return the soup to the saucepan, add pepper and salt.

  6. When the soup boils, stir and serve in a basin or soup tureen.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together316 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Red lentils
Break down during simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory aroma as it softens in the fat.
Celery
Contributes aroma and mild savory flavor as it softens with the onion.
Butter or dripping
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavor in the pan.

The step that matters

Simmering the soup. Simmering for the full 1 to 1.5 hours lets the lentils fully soften and break down, which thickens the soup. Too short a simmer leaves it grainy and thin.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, butter, 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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