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Bisque of Clams

A creamy soup of clams, stock, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bisque of Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Place clams with their liquor and water in a porcelain kettle over medium heat.

  2. When they start to simmer, remove clams, mince them, and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Add minced clams back to the kettle with onion, parsley, and mace.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Return the liquid to the kettle with stock.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix flour and butter together.

  2. Slowly pour the soup over the flour and butter mixture, stirring until creamy.

  3. Add hot cream and a little cayenne, ensuring the soup does not boil after adding the cream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the bisque.
Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy texture when mixed with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky, smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Stock
Forms the savory liquid base that gives the bisque depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Do not boil after adding the cream. Once cream is added, boiling can cause it to curdle or separate and make the texture grainy, so the soup should be kept hot but not boiling.

Swap the mace

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

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

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