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Mock Clam Soup

A bean-based soup flavored with savory, butter, and cream, served over toast and hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the marrowfat beans overnight in enough water to cover them.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and place them in a pot with the onion and cold water.

  3. Boil until the beans are tender, then strain the mixture.

Finish the soup

  1. Add summer savory, butter, cream or milk, and season with salt and pepper to the stock.

  2. Bring the soup to a boil.

Serve

  1. Cut the toast into dice and slice the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Place the toast and egg slices in a tureen and pour the soup over them 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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Marrowfat beans
Become tender and thicken the stock, giving the soup its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and creaminess, softening the soup's texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add substance and a soft, creamy texture to the finished bowl.

The step that matters

Boil until the beans are tender, then strain. Beans must be fully softened before straining; undercooked beans stay firm and grainy, and the purée will not thicken the stock properly.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, cream, pepper, egg):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, cream, pepper, egg. 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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