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Puree of Lentils

A smooth lentil puree cooked with carrots, garlic, bacon, butter, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Puree of Lentils

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Wash the lentils and stew them in stock with the carrots, clove, bacon, and butter.

  2. Once cooked, pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the purée to the pot, stir in additional stock, and skim off any grease.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lentils + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,083 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

Lentils
Break down during stewing to give the puree its body and thickness.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body, thickening the puree as they soften.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and smoky flavor to the stock-based puree.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid and the main savory base of the puree.

The step that matters

Passing through a fine sieve. Lentils must be cooked fully soft before sieving; undercooked lentils stay gritty and won't pass smoothly, leaving a grainy texture in the puree.

Swap the lentils

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove, butter. 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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