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Clam Soup

A savory soup made with clams, onion, herbs, butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams in cold water.

  2. Place the clams in a large pot with ½ cup boiling water. Cover and steam until they open.

  3. Pour the clams into a colander over a pan to collect the liquor and extract the meat from the shells.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine 1 quart of clams with their liquor and 1 pint of water. Boil for 3 minutes, skimming as needed, then strain.

  2. Return the liquor to the pot with the hard clam portions, onion, thyme, parsley, and mace. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the soup and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt 3 ounces of butter. Once bubbling, sprinkle in 2 ounces of flour and stir until cooked.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 pint of hot cream.

  3. Add this mixture to the strained clam liquor along with the soft clam meat. Mix well and heat thoroughly without boiling.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavour and the tender meat that makes the soup substantial.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux, carrying flavour and giving a smooth richness.
Flour
Thickens the soup as a roux with the butter, giving it a smooth body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Heating the cream mixture without boiling. Once the cream and roux are combined, boiling can cause the dairy to separate and the soup to turn grainy. Gentle heating keeps it smooth, and the soft clam meat stays tender rather than toughening.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, thyme, parsley, butter, flour, cream. 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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