Name: Clam Soup
Ingredients: 1 pound cooked clams; 2 crushed garlic cloves; 1 chopped onion; 3 sliced bacon cut into strips; 2 sliced plantains; 4 cups water; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; Salt and pepper

Why it works: Clam and onion work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 568 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

The recipe

Time25 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: soy, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Fry the bacon in a pan and then, using the same oil, sauté the onion.
Mix in the clams, garlic and water and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes.
Add plantains, Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking over a low heat for a further 15 minutes.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Clam + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together29,030 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,044 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,463 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Clam + garlictop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together119 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 flavour and the savoury body of the soup.
Bacon: Adds smoky fat and savoury flavour to the oil used for the onion.
Plantains: Soften during simmering and thicken the soup while adding a mild sweetness.
Onion: Softens and sweetens when sautéed, building the base flavour of the soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, garlic, sauce, pepper):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, garlic, sauce, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.