Skip to main content
Main

Clear Julienne Soup

A clear clam soup made with clam liquor, water, onion, clams, butter, flour, milk, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Clear Julienne Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Strain the clam liquor into a saucepan.

  2. Add boiling water, onion, hard parts of the clams, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, then strain.

Finish the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a separate pot, stir in the flour.

  2. Add the clam stock and milk, and bring to a boil.

  3. Season to taste, then simmer gently for 5 minutes to cook the flour.

  4. Add the soft parts of the clams and parsley, and serve immediately with crackers and pickles.

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

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

  3. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a light, smooth body as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the soup base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, mellow body to the broth.
Clam liquor
Provides the main clam flavour for the stock.
Soft parts of clams
Add the tender clam meat and its briny flavour at the end.

The step that matters

Simmer the flour after adding the milk. Flour thickens only when it is cooked long enough to swell and lose its raw taste. Simmering gently for the full 5 minutes cooks out the starchy flavour without scorching the milk, which can stick and burn if the heat is too high.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Potato BiscuitPotato Biscuit32 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes