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Creamed Clam Bisque

A creamy soup of clams, onion, milk, cream, and egg yolks, seasoned with paprika, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Creamed Clam Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Cook the chopped clams in their own liquor and boiling water with the strained onion for 30 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. In another saucepan, combine milk, cream, and baking soda; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in butter cooked to a white roux with flour and cook for 3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the whipped egg yolks until creamy.

  4. Set the mixture in a pot of boiling water and stir steadily for 2 minutes.

  5. Pour the mixture into a tureen.

Serve

  1. Season the clams with paprika, salt, and minced parsley, then pour over the custard in the tureen.

  2. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 bisque.
Butter
Enriches the base and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the bisque body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, giving the bisque a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess to the base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the mixture is too hot or boils after they are added, the proteins scramble and the custard curdles, which is why the record says to serve immediately.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, milk, cream, butter, flour, egg, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, cream, butter, flour, egg, parsley. 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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