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Clam Soup

A hearty soup made with clams, veal, herbs, spices, butter, and toasted bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Put clams in boiling water to open.

  2. Remove clams from shells, saving the liquor.

Make the broth

  1. Mix clam liquor with 3 quarts of water in a large pot with the chopped veal.

  2. Simmer slowly for 4 hours.

  3. Add sweet herbs, nutmeg, mace, and whole pepper.

  4. Stew for 1 hour longer.

  5. Strain the mixture.

  6. Return the liquor to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter pieces and stir until melted.

  2. Cut clams into pieces and add to the pot, then boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve with toasted bread cubes.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 briny, savoury flavour of the soup.
Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savoury body into the long-simmered broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Sweet herbs
Add aromatic, herbal notes to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the floured butter. Butter pieces rolled in flour must be stirred in until fully melted so the flour thickens the liquid smoothly rather than forming lumps. Keeping the soup below a hard boil while adding it helps prevent the emulsion from breaking and the fat from separating.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, veal, nutmeg, pepper, butter, flour, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, veal, nutmeg, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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