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Clam Soup

A creamy clam soup made with clams, milk, flour, butter, egg yolk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the clams in their own juice for 15 minutes.

  2. Press out all the juice and discard the clams.

  3. In a saucepan, blend the flour and butter, then stir into the boiling milk until smooth.

  4. Add the clam juice and stir well.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in the beaten egg yolk mixed with ¼ cup of the soup.

  2. Avoid boiling after adding the egg to prevent curdling.

  3. Season with pepper, cayenne, and mace if desired.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 flavour and the juice that becomes the base of the soup.
Milk
Forms the body of the soup and carries its creamy richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps blend the flour smoothly into the milk.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup gently when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Avoid boiling after adding the egg. Egg yolk proteins set and curdle when heated too strongly, leaving the soup grainy. Keeping it below boiling and stirring the yolk in gently keeps it smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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