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With Clams

A simple clam broth with butter, onion, parsley, and croutons.

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

With Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash and clean the clams well.

  2. Put the clams in a saucepan with ½ cup of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, drain the clams and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. In the same pan, melt 2 ounces of butter and fry the chopped onion until soft.

  2. Add the drained clam liquor, 1 pint of water, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley to the pan.

  3. Add the clams and boil for 2 minutes.

  4. Add a little more butter, mix well, and serve over croutons.

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 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 + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 body of the soup, with their liquor adding savoury depth.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when melted to fry the onion.
Onion
Softened in butter, it builds a sweet, aromatic base for the broth.

The step that matters

Boiling the clams for 2 minutes. Clams open and turn rubbery when overcooked. Boiling only briefly until they open keeps them tender and prevents a tough, chewy texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

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