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Creamed Clam Bisque

A creamy soup made from clams, milk, cream, and egg yolks, seasoned with paprika, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Creamed Clam Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the clam base

  1. Cook the chopped clams in their own liquor and boiling water with the strained onion for 30 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. In another saucepan, heat the milk and cream with a pinch of baking soda until boiling.

  2. Stir in the butter to make a white roux with the flour and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the whipped egg yolks until creamy.

  4. Set the mixture in a pot of boiling water and stir steadily for 2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a tureen.

  2. Season the clams with paprika, salt, and minced parsley, then pour over the custard in the tureen.

  3. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the bisque.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through gentle setting when heated.
Butter
Forms the roux with flour, adding richness and a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the butter roux, giving the bisque a smooth, body-rich texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the bisque a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid and sweetness, forming the creamy base with the cream.

The step that matters

Remove from heat and beat in the whipped egg yolks until creamy.. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble or curdle if they get too hot, so the mixture should be gently heated and stirred steadily, and served promptly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, milk, cream, butter, flour, egg, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, cream, butter, flour, egg, parsley. 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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