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Clam Soup— Cream of Clams

Be cautious with raw eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clam and parsley work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 232 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Clam Soup— Cream of Clams

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the clams and reserve the liquid.

  2. Combine clam liquid and water in a pot.

  3. Heat until warm, then add cream to achieve a thin cream consistency.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and slowly add a bit of the warm soup to temper them.

  5. Stir the egg mixture back into the soup, being careful not to let it boil to avoid curdling.

  6. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley or celery leaves.

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. Clam + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  3. Clam + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Clam + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. White pepperfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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