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Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, onion, parsley, celery, red pepper, milk, egg yolks, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam 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.

Make the broth

  1. Combine clams, onion, parsley, celery, red pepper, and salt in a pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil for at least 1 hour.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, cream together flour and butter.

  2. Strain the clams from the broth and add the creamed mixture to the broth.

  3. Whip the milk and add it to the broth.

  4. Beat in the egg yolks just 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, rounded texture to the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it slightly when stirred in.
Flour
Thickens the broth as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the texture.
Onion
Builds a savory, aromatic base as it simmers in the broth.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg yolks just before serving.. Egg yolks thicken when warmed but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Adding them at the end, with the soup no longer boiling, keeps the broth smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, parsley, celery, pepper, milk, egg, flour. 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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