Skip to main content
Main

Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, water, milk, butter, eggs, pepper, salt, and optional flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. If clams are not pre-opened, place them in a large pan and pour boiling water over them to open the shells. Remove clams as they open, saving all the liquid.

  2. Drain the liquid and bring it to a boil in a pot.

  3. Chop the clams finely and add them to the boiling liquid; cook for 3 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Heat the milk in another vessel until scalding (not boiling) and add it to the pot.

  2. For a thicker soup, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with a little cold milk and add it with the hot milk.

  3. Bring the soup back to a boil, stirring to prevent burning.

  4. Add the butter, pepper, salt, and beaten eggs; 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. 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Clams
Provide the main flavor and texture of the soup, releasing savory juices into the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the broth.
Eggs
Beaten eggs added at the end thicken the soup slightly and enrich its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavor to the soup.
Flour
Optional thickener that gives the soup a heavier body.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs. Eggs can scramble if the soup is boiling when they go in. Stir them into the hot, off-heat soup so they thicken gently and stay smooth.

“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.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes