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Clam Broth for Twelve Persons

A broth made from clams, onion, parsley, milk, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Broth for Twelve Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Scald the clams in their liquor.

  2. Skim the clams carefully and cut the soft part away, returning the hard part to the liquor.

  3. Mash the soft part of the clams through a coarse sieve or vegetable press.

Make the broth

  1. Add the onion, parsley, and seasoning, then cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat the milk and cream to boiling point.

  3. Thicken the milk and cream with 2 tablespoons of flour and 1 teaspoon of butter.

  4. At the last moment, add the clam purée to the milk and strain in the hot clam liquor.

  5. Serve with a spoonful of whipped cream in each cup or plate.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 flavour and the soft part that is mashed into the broth.
Clam liquor
Carries the shellfish flavour into the broth as its cooking liquid.
Milk and cream
Form the creamy base of the broth, adding richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream so the broth has body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened milk and cream.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk and cream. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid to thicken smoothly; adding it cold or unmixed can leave lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, cream, flour, butter, onion. 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.

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