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Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, 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

Make the broth

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

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Before removing from heat, add 1 ounce of butter beaten with 2 eggs.

  4. 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 texture of the soup, releasing their juices into the broth as they cook.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and body to the broth.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the soup as they soften and absorb liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Eggs
Enrich and slightly thicken the soup when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs and butter before removing from heat. If the egg mixture boils, the eggs can scramble and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth. Keeping the soup just below a boil lets the eggs thicken it gently.

“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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