Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Clam Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Chop the clams.
Scald the clams and their juice together.
Pour the hot clams and juice into the boiling milk.
Add the butter and cracker crumbs.
Serve hot immediately.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together840 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Clam + milktop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together636 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Clams
- Provide the main flavour and texture of the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy body of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
- Cracker crumbs
- Thicken the soup slightly as they absorb liquid.
The step that matters
Pour the hot clams and juice into the boiling milk. Adding the clam liquor to boiling milk can curdle or overheat the dairy, so pour steadily and keep the soup from boiling hard afterward to keep it smooth.
“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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