Why it works: Clam and butter work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 840 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Clam Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the clams finely.
In a pot, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil.
Make the soup
Add the chopped clams to the boiling water.
Once it boils again, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter.
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.
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Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provides the main briny, seafood flavor of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the soup a richer, rounder mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Adding the clams to the boiling water. Clam meat is protein that toughens when overheated. Once the clams are in, keep the time at a boil short so they stay tender rather than rubbery.
“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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