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Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, celery, water, milk, crackers, butter, pepper, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cook the chopped celery in 1 quart of water until tender, about 20 minutes.

  2. Season with butter and pepper.

  3. Add the chopped clams and cook for 10 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk and add it to the clams.

  2. Crush the crackers very fine and add them to the soup.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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 tender texture of the soup.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the water base as it cooks until tender.
Milk
Gives the soup a creamy body and mild sweetness.
Egg
Beaten egg stirred in at the end thickens the soup slightly and enriches its texture.
Crackers
Crushed crackers add body and help thicken the soup.

The step that matters

Just before serving, stir in the beaten egg.. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding it to a boiling soup can curdle it into grainy flecks. Stirring it in at the end, off the boil, keeps the texture smooth and silky.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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