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Clam Soup

A soup made with salt pork, onion, water, 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. Fry the salt pork in a pot until light brown.

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

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

Finish the soup

  1. Add the clams and mix well.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little water, then add the milk and stir into the soup.

  3. Let the soup boil for about 5 minutes.

  4. 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. 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 and flavour as it browns, seasoning the base of the soup.
Potatoes
Soften as the soup simmers and add body and starch to the broth.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour of the soup.
Flour
Mixed with water and stirred in, it thickens the milk and broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk. Flour mixed with water first stops lumps from forming. Stirring it into the simmering soup then thickens it evenly. Milk added to a hard boil can curdle or scorch, so keep the heat gentle once it is in.

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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