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Clam Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

Make the base

  1. Cut salt pork into very small squares.

  2. Fry the salt pork until light brown.

  3. Add finely chopped onions and cook them for about 10 minutes.

  4. Pour in 2 quarts of water.

  5. Add 1 quart of clams.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with water, then add the flour mixture to 1 pint of milk.

  2. Pour the milk mixture into the soup and let it boil for about 5 minutes.

  3. Season with butter, pepper, coarse 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Main flavour and seafood body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup feels fuller and creamier.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the broth's flavour.
Salt pork
Renders fat as it fries, adding savoury richness to the base.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the fat.

The step that matters

Let the flour mixture cook in the soup. Flour mixed with milk can clump if added carelessly. Stirring it in smoothly and then boiling gently lets the starch hydrate and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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