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Clam Soup

A veal-based clam soup with celery, onions, crackers, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the veal in 6 to 7 quarts of water for 2 hours with the onions, green part of the celery, salt, red pepper, and hard part of the clams.

  2. Strain the liquid into another kettle and return it to the heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter, then the crushed crackers, and finally the soft part of the clams.

  2. Scald once and serve.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, with the hard parts seasoning the broth and the soft parts added at the end.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the water during the long simmer.
Soda crackers
Crushed crackers thicken the soup slightly and add body.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the soft part of the clams. Soft clam meat toughens and turns rubbery when overheated, so it should be added last and only scalded briefly to keep it tender.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, veal, onion, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, veal, onion, pepper, butter. 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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