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Clam Soup

A savory soup made with salt pork, onions, potatoes, clams, flour, milk, butter, pepper, sea salt, and optional 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

Make the soup

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pot until light brown.

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

  3. Pour in the water and add the sliced potatoes; bring to a boil.

  4. Add the clams and mix the flour with a little water to make a paste.

  5. Stir the flour paste into the soup along with the milk and let it boil for about 5 minutes.

Season and serve

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

  2. Add Worcestershire sauce if desired.

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 flavours the base of the soup.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding body and starch to the broth.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour and brininess to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it boils, giving it a creamier body.
Milk
Adds richness and a mellow, creamy texture to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour paste. Flour mixed with water first makes a smooth paste; adding it dry can clump. Stirring it in and boiling gently lets the starch swell and thicken the soup 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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