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Clam Soup

A creamy clam soup with potatoes, onions, eggs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the clams and chop them finely.

  2. Boil the potatoes and onion separately until tender.

  3. Add the cream to the potatoes and onion.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the butter and flour together to form a paste.

  2. Just before serving, add the flour mixture to thicken the soup.

  3. Add the clams last, cooking them until they just boil.

  4. Chop the egg whites finely and rub the yolks smooth.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the soup.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the soup.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, giving the soup a thicker, heartier texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps form the flour paste.
Hard boiled eggs
Yolks rubbed smooth enrich the soup and add body.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture. Flour thickens only when heated in liquid, and it clumps if dropped in raw. Blending the butter and flour into a smooth paste first and stirring it into the hot soup lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken without lumps or a pasty raw-flour taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, thyme, parsley, pepper, potato, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, thyme, parsley, pepper, potato, cream. 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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