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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, carrot, onion, celery, butter, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lentils in several waters.

  2. If using whole lentils, soak them overnight.

  3. Melt the butter or dripping in a saucepan.

  4. Cut up the onion and celery.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the onion, celery, and lentils to the saucepan.

  2. Simmer over low heat for five minutes with the cover on, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Add the water, stir well, and simmer for 1 to 2 hours, or until the lentils are quite soft.

Strain and serve

  1. Pour the soup through a wire sieve, rubbing the vegetables through with a wooden spoon.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan, season to taste, and let it boil before serving.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Lentils + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Lentils + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together316 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
Provide the main body, and as they soften they thicken the soup.
Butter or dripping
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavour into the soup.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the fat.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour that deepens the savoury base.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body when rubbed through the sieve.

The step that matters

Simmering until the lentils are quite soft. Lentils must cook long enough to break down fully; undercooked lentils stay firm and grainy, leaving the soup thin in body and rough in texture.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, 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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