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Bisque of Clams

A creamy soup made from clams, milk, and aromatics, finished with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bisque of Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Chop the clams and add them to their strained liquor.

  2. Add sliced onion, cloves, parsley, and mace.

  3. Cook for 20 minutes.

Make the milk base

  1. Thicken the milk with cornstarch blended in a little cold water.

  2. Cook the thickened milk in a double boiler for 10 minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Strain the clam mixture into the thickened milk.

  2. Season with salt and serve in cups with unsweetened whipped cream.

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. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main savory flavor and tender texture in the bisque.
Milk
Forms the creamy body of the bisque once heated and thickened.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the bisque becomes smooth and velvety rather than thin.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the clam liquor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with cornstarch. Cornstarch must be blended into cold water first so it disperses evenly; added directly to hot milk it clumps. Cooking it fully swells the starch granules and sets the thickness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, milk, clove, parsley, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, milk, clove, parsley, cream. 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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