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Clam Soup

A savory soup made with salt pork, onions, potatoes, clams, flour, milk, butter, pepper, sea salt, and optional Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pot until light brown.

  2. Add the chopped onions and cook for about 10 minutes.

  3. Pour in the water and add the sliced potatoes; bring to a boil.

  4. Add the clams and mix the flour with a little water to make a paste.

Finish and season

  1. Stir the flour paste into the soup along with the milk and let it boil for about 5 minutes.

  2. Season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Add Worcestershire sauce if desired.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat that browns the base and flavours the soup.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the rendered fat.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, thickening the broth and adding body.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour and brininess to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smoother, creamier body when stirred in as a paste.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the saltiness of the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the soup. Flour lumps if added dry or not fully smoothed into liquid. Mixing it with a little water first and stirring it in well lets it disperse evenly, then the boil cooks out the raw starch taste and thickens the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, potato, clam, flour, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, clam, flour, milk, butter, pepper. 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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