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Clam Soup

A creamy soup made with clams, butter, flour, clam liquor, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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

  1. Strain the soft clams and chop them finely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  4. Slowly add the clam liquor, stirring continuously.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the chopped clams and cook for 3 minutes.

  2. Stir in the cream and serve hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Clam + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the soup with fat and carries flavour from the pan.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly body-rich base with the butter.
Clam liquor
Adds the main clam flavour and forms the liquid of the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Slowly add the clam liquor, stirring continuously. Adding liquid to the flour and butter all at once can leave lumps. Gradual addition with constant stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, so the base thickens smoothly.

“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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