Why it works: Clam and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 840 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: egg, flour, bread
Directions
Prepare the clams and broth
Put clams into a pot of boiling water to open them easily, then remove them from shells, carefully saving the liquor.
Add the liquor of a quart of opened clams to the pot, then add three quarts of water.
Mix the water with the clam liquor and put it into a large pot with a knuckle of veal, bone chopped into four places.
Simmer slowly for four hours.
Add a large bunch of sweet herbs, beaten nutmeg, a teaspoonful of mace, and a tablespoonful of whole pepper, but no salt.
Stew slowly for an additional hour.
Strain the soup.
Return the liquor to the pot.
Finish the soup
Add a quarter pound of butter, divided into four pieces, each rolled in flour.
Add the clams, cut into pieces, and boil for fifteen minutes.
Serve with toasted bread cut into dice.
Make force-meat balls
Make small force-meat balls: mix cold minced veal or chicken with equal quantities of chopped suet and sweet marjoram, and a smaller proportion of hard-boiled egg, grated lemon peel, and powdered nutmeg.
Pound all ingredients together in a mortar, adding a little pepper and salt.
Break in a raw egg or two (in proportion to the quantity) to bind the mixture.
Form the mixture into small balls.
Boil the balls in the soup for ten minutes, shortly before serving. If using raw veal or chicken, boil longer.
Optional additions
Cut up a yam and boil it in the soup.
Oyster soup may be made in this manner.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Clam + buttertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together840 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + peppertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together85,512 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Clam + peppertop 13% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together952 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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 briny liquor that forms the soup base.
- Butter
- Adds richness and body, thickened slightly by the flour coating each piece.
- Veal knuckle (in the method)
- Contributes gelatin and savoury depth to the long-simmered broth.
- Eggs (in the method)
- Bind the force-meat balls so they hold their shape while cooking.
The step that matters
Adding the butter in flour-coated pieces. Flour coating lets the butter disperse into the hot liquid without clumping, and simmering it briefly thickens the soup gently rather than leaving raw flour or greasy pools.
“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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