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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, carrot, turnip, stock, butter, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Cook the soup

  1. Wash the lentils and place them in the stock; bring to a boil.

  2. Skim off any foam, then add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the grated carrot, minced parsley, and butter when the soup is nearly ready to serve.

  2. Serve with slices of toast.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and color to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam. Foam that rises while the stock comes to a boil carries impurities that can cloud the soup and dull its flavor. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting over the long simmer.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, butter, pepper, parsley. 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

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