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Clam Soup

A veal-based soup with clams, seasonings, and egg‑butter‑flour dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal in 3 quarts of salted water.

  2. Add the clams and their juice, along with pepper, parsley, and onions. If the clams are small, use more.

Add the dumplings

  1. Make small dumplings by mixing the egg, butter, and enough flour to form a paste.

  2. Add the dumplings to the soup and cook until done.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal knuckle
Gives the broth its body and savory meaty flavor as it simmers.
Clams
Release their juice into the broth, adding a briny, oceanic flavor.
Egg
Binds the flour and butter so the dumplings hold together while cooking.
Flour
Forms the paste that gives the dumplings their structure and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the dumplings and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Add the dumplings to the soup and cook until done. Dumplings must be fully cooked through in the simmering liquid; flour paste stays doughy and raw in the centre if the soup is not cooked long enough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clam, pepper, parsley, egg, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clam, pepper, parsley, egg, butter, flour. 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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