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Clam Soup

A hearty soup made with clams, veal knuckle, herbs, spices, butter, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Put clams in boiling water to open, then remove from shells, saving the liquor.

Make the broth

  1. Mix clam liquor with 3 quarts of water in a large pot with the chopped knuckle of veal.

  2. Simmer slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Add sweet herbs, nutmeg, mace, and whole pepper; do not add salt.

  4. Stew for 1 hour longer, then strain the mixture.

  5. Return the liquor to the pot, add butter pieces, and stir until melted.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut clams into pieces and add to the pot; let it boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with toasted bread cut into dice.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and become tender pieces in the finished soup.
Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and meaty flavor into the water during long simmering, giving body to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and the flour coating helps thicken and smooth the broth.
Toasted bread
Adds crunch and a toasted aroma as a garnish that contrasts with the soft soup.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 3 hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavor and gelatin from the veal without boiling it hard, which would cloud the broth and toughen the meat's texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, veal, nutmeg, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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