Skip to main content

Clam Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the butter in a pot.

  2. Thicken the butter with flour.

  3. Pour in enough water for your soup.

  4. Add the veal or lamb and clam liquor.

  5. Stir in the chopped onion, thyme, pepper, cloves, and mace.

  6. Do not add salt; the clam liquor provides enough.

  7. Add the wine and boiled yam if using.

  8. Let the soup boil for three hours.

  9. Trim and cut the clams into small pieces.

  10. Add the clams to the soup half an hour 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. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, clam, onion, thyme, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes