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Clam Soup

Clam soup made with clams, water, milk, crackers, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Cook the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in just enough water for the soup.

  2. Boil the clams until they clear from the shells.

  3. Remove the clams and place them in a jar for pickling.

Finish the soup

  1. Add 1 pint of sweet milk and 1 pint of rolled crackers to the broth and boil for five minutes.

  2. Before serving, stir in 1 ounce of butter beaten with 2 eggs.

  3. Let each person season to taste.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

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

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 make up the body of the soup.
Sweet milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Rolled crackers
Absorb liquid as they cook, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the soup a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Eggs
Add richness and slightly thicken the soup when stirred in.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and eggs before serving. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the soup is kept at a hard boil after the eggs go in, they can curdle or turn grainy instead of enriching the broth evenly.

“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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