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Clam Soup

Clam soup made with clams, water, milk, butter, pepper, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the clams.

  2. Boil the clams in their own liquor and water slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Boil the milk.

  4. Add the butter and pepper to the milk.

  5. Roll the crackers.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the crackers to the clams a few minutes before serving.

  2. Pour the clams into a tureen.

  3. Add the milk to the tureen. Mix thoroughly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

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 texture of the soup, releasing savory liquor as they cook.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the milk.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the soup slightly, adding body.

The step that matters

Boil the milk. Milk can scorch or form a skin when boiled hard on direct heat, and it can curdle if overheated. Heating it gently and watching it closely keeps it smooth before it is combined with the clams.

“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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