Name: Clam Soup
Ingredients: clams; water; butter; pepper; salt; milk or cream; rolled crackers

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the required number of clams finely.
Cook the clams in a little water with butter, pepper, and salt until almost done.
Add milk or cream and one cup of rolled crackers for soup serving four.
Serve hot.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together636 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).