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Soup

Clam Soup

A creamy soup made with clams, clam juice, water, flour, butter, milk, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare

  1. Remove clams from their juice and chop them finely.

  2. Combine clam juice and water in a pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Skim off any foam.

Make the soup

  1. In a bowl, cream together flour and butter.

  2. Remove the pot from heat.

  3. Stir in the flour and butter mixture.

  4. Add milk to the pot.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Stir in the chopped clams and pepper.

  7. Boil for 5 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

Flour and butter 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 flavor and texture of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is cooked with the butter and liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and mixed with flour it helps thicken the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, mellowing the broth.

The step that matters

Stir the flour and butter mixture into the pot off the heat. Adding a flour-butter paste to hot liquid off the heat lets it disperse before thickening. Stirred in over direct heat, the flour can clump into lumps that are hard to smooth out.

“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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