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Clam Soup

A creamy soup made with clams, milk, flour, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Combine the chopped clams and water in a stew pan.

  2. Heat slowly to boiling, but do not let it boil.

Make the milk base

  1. Scald the milk with the onion juice in a separate pot.

  2. Thicken the milk with flour.

  3. Season the thickened milk with nutmeg.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the clam mixture with the milk mixture.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the soup.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes creamy rather than watery.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam and folded in, they lighten the soup's texture.

The step that matters

Heat the clam mixture slowly without letting it boil. Boiling clams toughens their proteins and makes them rubbery, so gentle heating keeps them tender and the broth delicate.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, milk, flour, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, flour, nutmeg, egg. 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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