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Clam Soup

A soup made from clams, veal, butter, flour, egg yolks, cream, parsley, pepper, and dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clam broth

  1. Boil 50 clams in 2 quarts of water.

  2. Mix in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in 2 egg yolks and ½ cup of cream.

  4. Add a few sprigs of parsley and pepper to taste.

  5. Let it simmer for a few minutes before serving.

Add the veal and dumplings

  1. Boil 1 knuckle of veal in 3 quarts of salted water with 50 clams and their juice.

  2. Season with pepper, parsley, and onions.

  3. Add small dumplings made from 1 egg, some butter, and enough flour to form a paste.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Give the soup its main briny, seafood flavor and savory body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the broth with butter, giving it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding smoothness when stirred in off the heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the broth.
Veal knuckle
Contributes gelatin and meaty depth to the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the soup boils after they go in, they can curdle and turn grainy. Adding them just before removing the pot from heat, as the record directs, lets them thicken gently and keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, flour, egg, cream, pepper, veal. 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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