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Philadelphia Clam Soup

A creamy clam soup made with clams, milk, potatoes, butter, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Philadelphia Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the clams finely and drain them in a colander.

  2. Peel and chop the potatoes finely.

Make the soup

  1. In a double kettle, boil the potatoes with the milk.

  2. Rub the butter and flour together until creamy.

  3. After the milk and potatoes have boiled for 15 minutes, stir in the butter and flour mixture and cook for 8 more minutes.

  4. Add the parsley, salt, and pepper, and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

  5. Finally, add the clams and cook for 1 more minute before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its creamy body.
Potatoes
Thicken the soup as they cook and soften into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened base.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Stirring the flour and butter into hot milk without a smooth paste first can leave lumps. Cooking the mixture for several minutes removes the raw flour taste and lets the starch thicken the soup evenly.

“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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