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Lentil Soup

A hearty soup made with lentils, vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Rinse the lentils under cold water.

  2. In a pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.

  3. Add onion, carrots, celery, and garlic; sauté until softened.

Simmer

  1. Add lentils, water, salt, pepper, and bay leaf.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until lentils are tender.

  3. Remove bay leaf 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Lentils + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together633 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 of the soup and thicken it as they break down while simmering.
Onion, carrots, celery
Build the aromatic base and add natural sweetness as they soften in the oil.
Garlic
Adds aroma that deepens as it cooks gently in the oil.
Olive oil
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Sautéing the vegetables until softened. Cooking the onion, carrots, and celery slowly in oil softens them and builds flavor. Rushing this step leaves the vegetables raw and the soup tasting flat.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lentils, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, pepper, olive. 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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