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Bisque of Clams

A creamy soup made from clams, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bisque of Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Boil the clams in their own juice for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain and chop the clams very fine.

Make the bisque

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne; stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly.

  4. Just before the mixture boils, remove from heat.

  5. Strain the mixture and heat again before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the bisque and adds richness.
Flour
Combined with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the bisque, adding body and richness.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor, and their juice adds savory depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the roux smooth, preventing lumps from forming as the starch hydrates evenly.

“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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