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Lentil Soup, Green

A hearty soup made with green lentils, vegetables, herbs, and milk, simmered for hours and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Lentil Soup, Green

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the lentils overnight.

  2. Wash and drain the lentils.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring water to a boil and add the lentils and vegetables.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and simmer for about 3 to 4 hours, or until soft.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the pot.

  4. Stir in the milk and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Boil gently for about 10 minutes and serve with fried or toasted 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lentils + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lentils + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green lentils
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they soften and break down.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds savory depth as it cooks down into the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Lentils must be cooked until fully soft before sieving; otherwise the purée stays grainy and the soup can taste thin and rough in texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lentils, spinach, carrot, turnip, allspice, parsley, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, spinach, carrot, turnip, allspice, parsley, thyme. 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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