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Clam Soup

A thick clam broth made by simmering clams and water, served with toast and optional egg and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the clams very fine.

  2. Combine the clams with their liquor and 4 cups of cold water in a clean pot.

  3. Simmer gently for about 1.5 hours without boiling until it becomes a thick broth.

  4. Season to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour into a tureen with slices of toast.

  2. Beat the egg and gradually add the milk.

  3. Stir into the soup after removing it from the heat.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Clam + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavor and body of the broth as they release their juices while simmering.
Egg
Thickens the soup slightly and adds richness when stirred in off the heat.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavor of the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. Boiling toughens clam meat and can make the broth cloudy, while gentle simmering extracts flavor slowly. Stirring the egg in off the heat prevents it from scrambling.

“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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