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Bisque of Clams

A creamy soup made from clams, milk, water, butter, peppercorns, mace, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Bisque of Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Save all the liquor from the clams.

  2. In a pot, combine the clam liquor, water, black peppercorns, mace, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Cook and strain

  1. Add the clams and cover the pot.

  2. Boil quickly for 30 minutes, watching carefully to prevent burning.

  3. Strain the liquid before serving.

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. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

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

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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 shellfish flavour and body of the bisque, releasing their liquor as they cook.
Milk
Adds creaminess and sweetness, giving the bisque its smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a savoury, rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Boil quickly for 30 minutes without burning. Milk and butter-rich liquids can scorch on the bottom of the pot at high heat. Stirring and watching the heat prevents milk solids from browning and tasting burnt.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, butter. 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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