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Clam Soup

A soup made with salt pork, onions, potatoes, clams, flour, milk, butter, pepper, sea salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut salt pork into very small squares and fry until light brown.

  2. Add finely chopped onions and cook for about 10 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Add water and sliced potatoes and let it boil.

  2. Add the can of clams.

  3. Mix flour with a little water, combine with milk, and pour into the soup.

  4. Let it boil for about 5 minutes.

Season

  1. Season with butter, pepper, sea salt, and Worcestershire sauce to taste.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat that browns the base and flavours the whole soup.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the soup base.
Raw potatoes
Release starch as they cook, thickening the broth and giving body.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour and briny character of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it blends smoothly and lends body to the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the broth's texture.

The step that matters

Combining the flour mixture with the milk and soup. Flour mixed with cold liquid first stops it clumping. Stirring it into the soup while it boils, then letting it cook a few minutes, cooks out the raw flour taste and thickens the broth evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, potato, clam, flour, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, clam, flour, milk, butter, pepper. 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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