Skip to main content
Main

Clam Soup

A soup of clams, potatoes, onion, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pare and boil the potatoes and onion in the quart of water until soft, then mash.

  2. Chop the clams finely and add them with their liquor to the mashed potatoes and water.

Thicken and season

  1. Mix the butter and flour until smooth, then stir into the soup.

  2. Add pepper, salt, paprika, sweet marjoram, and parsley.

  3. Boil for about ten minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk in a separate saucepan and add it just 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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + marjoramtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, with their liquor adding savory brininess.
Potatoes
Break down when boiled and mashed to give the soup body and a thick, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is stirred in and heated, giving it a smoother body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, and is added late so it stays fresh and does not scorch.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture. Flour must be fully blended into the butter and stirred into the hot soup, then boiled. Boiling cooks out the raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken the soup evenly rather than leaving lumps.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, potato, onion, butter, flour, milk, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, onion, butter, flour, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes