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Clam Bisque

A creamy clam soup made with butter, onion, carrot, flour, clam broth, water, egg yolks, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clam Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot and add the onion and carrot. Cover and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Add the clam bouillon and hot water, then cook for five minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and return it to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks with the cream, salt, and pepper.

  2. Slowly add the egg mixture to the soup and serve.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + clamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base as the vegetables soften.
Flour
Thickens the broth slightly as it cooks with the liquid.
Clam bouillon
Provides the main liquid and the clam flavour of the bisque.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Slowly add the egg mixture to the soup. Egg yolks can curdle if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Adding the mixture slowly while stirring, and keeping the soup from boiling, tempers the yolks so the bisque stays smooth and thickened.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, clam, egg, cream, 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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