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Clam Soup

A creamy clam soup made with clams, butter, flour, and cream or milk, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Open the clams and save the juice.

  2. Chop the clams (not too fine).

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the clam juice and butter; bring to a boil.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and stir well.

  3. Add the chopped clams to the stewpan; stew for a couple of minutes.

  4. Add the boiling cream or milk.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

  6. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavour and the body of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup becomes creamy.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body.

The step that matters

Sprinkle in the flour and stir well. Flour clumps if added without thorough stirring. Stirring it into the hot butter and clam juice disperses the starch so it thickens the soup evenly instead of leaving lumps.

“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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