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Clam Soup

A soup made with a meat broth, clams, cream, butter, flour, egg yolks, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the fowl, veal, or calf's feet in 1 quart of water with onion, mace, pepper, and salt until you have a quart of jelly.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Let the liquid cool.

  4. Remove the fat.

Add the clams

  1. Heat the clams over the fire until they open.

  2. Strain the clam liquid.

  3. Add the clam liquid to the meat jelly.

  4. Add the clams and boil everything for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the cream or milk with the butter and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  3. Combine the beaten egg yolks and chopped parsley in a tureen.

  4. Pour in the soup gradually, mixing well with the eggs before adding the rest.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fowl, veal knuckle, or calf's feet
Releases gelatin as it simmers, giving the stock its jelly body and rich mouthfeel.
Sand clams
Contribute briny, savoury flavour to the soup as they cook and open.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when tempered in gradually, adding body and silkiness.

The step that matters

Pour in the soup gradually while mixing the eggs. Adding hot soup to egg yolks slowly, while stirring, warms them gently so they blend in smoothly. Pouring too fast can scramble the yolks into lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, clam, cream, walnut, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, clam, cream, walnut, 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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