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Clam Soup

A soup made from chopped clams, water, milk, butter, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 broth

  1. Stew the chopped clams in their own liquor and 2 quarts of water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture and return it to the fire.

  3. Once it boils, add 1 pint of milk.

  4. Mix the butter with flour to thicken the soup.

Finish with egg

  1. Beat 3 eggs until light and pour them into the tureen.

  2. Carefully stir in the hot soup.

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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Clams
Release their liquor and flavor into the water, giving the soup its main taste.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the clam flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Eggs
Beaten and stirred into the hot soup, they enrich and lightly thicken it.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot soup into the eggs. Eggs scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Pour the soup in slowly while stirring constantly so the eggs warm gradually and stay smooth.

“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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