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Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, sweet milk, rolled crackers, butter, eggs, and 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 ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in just enough water to cover the clams for the soup.

  2. Boil until the clams clear from their shells, then remove them and set aside in a jar for pickling.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sweet milk and rolled crackers to the broth, along with the salt, and boil for five minutes.

  2. Just before removing from heat, stir in the butter beaten with the eggs.

  3. Serve and let each person season to taste.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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 body of the soup as they release their juices into the broth.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the broth.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the soup as they soften and absorb liquid.
Eggs
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently when stirred in near the end.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and eggs. If the egg mixture is added while the soup is at a hard boil, the eggs can scramble and curdle. Removing the pot from the heat first lets the eggs thicken smoothly into the broth.

“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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