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Lentil Soup

A lentil soup made with lentils, water, milk, flour, butter, paprika, salt, sugar, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lentils and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lentil Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lentils

  1. Pick over and wash the lentils, then soak them for three hours.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the lentils in boiling water until soft and the water reduces by half.

  2. Rub the lentils through a strainer.

  3. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Thicken the soup with flour cooked in butter.

  5. Season with paprika, salt, and a little sugar.

  6. Serve with croutons.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Form the body of the soup, and when rubbed through a strainer they give it a smooth, thick texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, making the soup smooth and mellow in flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked in butter, giving it body.
Butter
Cooked with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour cooked in butter. Flour must be cooked in the butter before it goes into the soup, so the starch swells evenly and the soup thickens smoothly without a raw floury taste or lumps.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar. 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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