Skip to main content
Main

General Burnside's Clam Soup

A soup made from clams, onions, water, milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

General Burnside's Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine clams, onions, and water, then boil for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

Make the milk base

  1. In a separate pot, scald the milk and whisk in the flour until thickened.

  2. Season the milk mixture with salt and pepper.

Combine and serve

  1. Chop the clams finely, removing any black parts from the stomachs.

  2. Combine the chopped clams with the milk mixture and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clam + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 savory flavour and the chopped meat that gives the soup its body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and carries its richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the soup a smooth, body-rich texture.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the clam broth.

The step that matters

Scalding and whisking the milk with flour. Flour must be whisked in while the milk is hot so it disperses evenly and thickens smoothly; adding it to cold milk or letting it sit can cause lumps and an uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, flour, pepper. 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.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes