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Soup

Clam and Tomato Consommé

A clear soup made with clams, tomatoes, beef, veal, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clam and Tomato Consommé

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clam water

  1. Wash and scrub the clams thoroughly.

  2. Place the clams in a granite stew pan with ½ cup cold water, cover, and cook until the shells open.

  3. Remove the clams and strain the liquid through double cheesecloth to obtain clam water.

Make the broth

  1. In a soup kettle, wipe the beef and cut it into ½ inch cubes.

  2. Brown half of the beef in butter.

  3. Add the remaining beef, veal pieces, browned meat, and bones to the kettle with 2 quarts cold water.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 30 minutes.

  5. Heat slowly to boiling and simmer for 4 hours.

  6. Add the chicken stock and simmer for an additional hour.

Add vegetables and strain

  1. Cook the diced vegetables in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the vegetables to the soup along with seasonings and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  3. Strain the soup.

Finish

  1. Cool quickly, remove the fat, and clear.

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. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long simmering draws meat flavor into the broth, giving it depth.
Veal knuckle
Collagen from the connective tissue turns to gelatin, giving the broth body.
Marrow bone
Bone and marrow add richness and gelatin, rounding out the flavor.
Clams
Their briny juices add a sea flavor to the clam water.
Canned tomatoes
Acidity and sweetness brighten the broth and balance the rich meat.
Butter
Fat helps brown the beef, adding roasted flavor before simmering.

The step that matters

Heat slowly and keep a gentle simmer. Bringing the broth to a boil slowly and then holding a gentle simmer keeps fat and proteins from being churned into the liquid. A hard boil makes the consommé cloudy and greasy, so the soup stays clear when it is strained and cooled.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, tomato, beef, butter, veal, thyme, chicken):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, tomato, beef, butter, veal, thyme, chicken. 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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