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Clam Soup

A soup made from veal or calf's feet, clams, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the fowl, veal, or calf's feet until you have 1 quart of jelly.

  2. Add the onion, mace, pepper, and salt while boiling.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Let the liquid cool.

  5. Remove the fat from the liquid.

Prepare the clams

  1. Place the clams in a pot over heat until they open.

  2. Strain the clam liquid.

  3. Add the clam liquid to the meat jelly.

  4. Add the clams to the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil everything for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Mix the cream or milk with the butter and flour.

  3. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  4. In a tureen, combine the beaten egg yolks and chopped parsley.

  5. Pour the soup gradually into the tureen.

  6. Mix well with the eggs.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the soup and add richness when stirred in at the end.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the cream mixture thicken.
Sand clams
Contribute their briny, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Pour the soup gradually into the tureen. Adding hot soup slowly to beaten egg yolks, while mixing, tempers them so they warm gently without scrambling into lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, clam, cream, walnut, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, clam, cream, walnut, 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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