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Stewed Lentils

A simple stew of brown lentils cooked with onions, butter, stock, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,221 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Wash the lentils in cold water and soak them for 4 hours or overnight.

  2. Drain the lentils.

  3. Place the lentils in a saucepan.

  4. Cover with cold water and add salt.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 1 hour.

Cook the onion

  1. Peel and slice the onion.

  2. Melt the butter in another saucepan.

  3. Add the sliced onion.

  4. Fry until golden, stirring occasionally.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the cooked lentils with the onion.

  2. Add the stock.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. Stir over heat for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve in a hot vegetable dish.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Lentils + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown lentils
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and holding their shape while simmering.
Butter
Carries the onion's browning and adds richness and a rounded flavour.
Onion
Browns in the butter to add sweetness and savoury depth.
Stock
Adds liquid and savoury flavour as the lentils finish stewing together.

The step that matters

Frying the onion until golden. Onion that is pale or burnt tastes flat or bitter. Stirring keeps it cooking evenly, so the sugars caramelise into sweet, browned flavour rather than scorching.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, 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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