Name: Clam Soup
Ingredients: clams; boiling water; black pepper; white roux or flour

Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

clams
boiling water
black pepper
white roux or flour

Directions

Wash the clams and cover them with boiling water.
Boil until the shells open, then remove the clams from the shells and save the liquor.
Chop the clams and strain the liquor.
Combine the chopped clams and liquor in a pan with black pepper.
Boil for 15 minutes, then thicken with white roux or flour.

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.

Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Clam + flourtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together576 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together952 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).