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Clam Soup

A soup made with clams, water, flour, butter, milk, salt, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare the clams

  1. Open the clams and reserve the juice.

  2. Add the clam juice to 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Chop the clams very fine and add them to the boiling water.

  4. Boil for 3 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in 4 tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add 1 pint of milk and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in 3 beaten eggs until well combined.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 texture of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup together with the butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the thickened base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds sweetness and softness.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the soup as they set gently in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten eggs off the heat. Eggs can curdle or turn grainy if they overheat. Removing the pot from heat before adding them lets them thicken gently and stay smooth.

“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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