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Lentils, Savoury

A lentil stew cooked with butter, onion, parsley, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lentils, Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils in tepid water for about 3 hours, changing the water as it cools.

  2. Melt 1 oz. of butter in a stewpan; lightly fry the onion.

Cook the lentils

  1. Add the drained lentils, cover with warm water, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook gently for about 2 hours until the lentils are tender.

  3. Remove the lid and let the water evaporate until the lentils are dry.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the remaining butter, white sauce, and parsley; season to taste.

  2. Toss over the fire until thoroughly hot, then 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Lentils + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Lentils
Form the main body of the stew, softening into a tender, thick texture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the finished stew a smooth mouthfeel.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, helping bind the lentils into a cohesive stew.
Onion
Provides aromatic flavour when lightly fried in butter at the start.

The step that matters

Remove the lid and let the water evaporate until the lentils are dry. Evaporating the cooking liquid concentrates flavour and prevents a watery result. Stopping too early leaves the stew soupy, while over-reducing can scorch the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, parsley, sauce, 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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