Skip to main content
Main

Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, clam juice, water, onion, butter, flour, milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine clams, clam juice, water, onion, salt, and pepper. Boil for 10 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix butter and flour until smooth. Stir the butter-flour mixture into the boiling soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and add milk mixed with egg yolks.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and a smooth mouthfeel.
Wheat flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a silkier texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Removing the pot from heat before adding the yolk-milk mixture lets them thicken the soup gently and keeps it smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Wheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes