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Clam Soup

A creamy clam soup made with clams, cream, butter, flour, onions, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Strain the juice from the clams and wash them.

  2. Chop the clams very finely.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring the clam juice to a boil and remove any scum.

  2. Add the chopped clams and boil for 45 minutes with pot herbs and the onions tied in a bag.

Make the cream thickening

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter, then whisk in the flour and let it cook briefly.

  2. Add the cream to the butter and flour mixture and bring to a boil.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the cream mixture with the clam soup and bring it all to a boil again.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

  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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Clam + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 flavor and texture of the soup, and their juice gives the broth its taste.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the soup.
Butter
Carries fat flavor and, with the flour, forms the base that thickens the cream.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture so the soup becomes body-rich instead of thin.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth while simmering in a bag.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour before adding the cream. Cooking flour briefly in melted butter removes its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding cream without this step can leave lumps or a pasty flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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