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Cockle Soup

A creamy soup made with cockles, butter, flour, stock, spices, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cockle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald, drain, and wash the cockles thoroughly, reserving their liquor.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Mix in the flour and moisten with the white stock or milk.

  3. Season with nutmeg, cayenne, and anchovy, then add the cream.

  4. Stir over low heat for 15 minutes until gently boiling.

Serve

  1. Cut the cockles in halves and pour the hot soup over them in a tureen.

  2. Squeeze a little lemon into the soup before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cockles
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup as the seafood base.
Butter
Carries flavour and, with the flour, forms the base that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock or milk into a smooth, body-giving base.
White stock or milk
Forms the liquid of the soup, giving it its main volume and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until gently boiling. Flour needs sustained, gentle heat to cook out its raw taste and thicken evenly. Hard boiling or scorching at the base can cause lumps, sticking, or a grainy texture, especially once cream is added.

“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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