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Clam Soup

A soup made from clams, clam liquor, milk, spices, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in a pot of boiling water.

  2. When the clams open, remove them with a ladle and drain in a colander.

  3. Save 1 quart of the clam liquor.

  4. Chop the clams finely, passing them through the colander.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, mix the clam liquor with 2 quarts of rich milk and add the chopped clams.

  2. Add pepper, sweet marjoram, mace, and celery seed for flavor.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

  4. Thicken the soup with a little flour and butter.

  5. Make small dumplings of butter and flour and let them boil for an additional 15 minutes.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Marjoram + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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
Provide the main flavor and texture of the soup once chopped into the broth.
Clam liquor
Supplies concentrated seafood flavor and forms the liquid base of the soup.
Rich milk
Adds body, creaminess and sweetness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps flour thicken the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in fat or well dispersed in liquid to avoid lumps and a raw starchy taste. Adding it in small amounts and letting the soup simmer lets the starch swell fully and thicken evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, pepper, marjoram, celery, flour, 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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