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Clam Soup

A soup made from long clams, water, milk, flour, butter, eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Stew the chopped clams with their own liquor and 3 quarts of water for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Return the liquor to the fire.

Finish the soup

  1. Once it boils, add 1 pint of milk.

  2. Thicken with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Add butter.

Add the eggs and serve

  1. Place 3 well beaten eggs in a tureen.

  2. Slowly pour the hot soup over the eggs. Stir carefully.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 flavor and body of the soup as they simmer in the liquid.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the briny clam taste.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the soup has a fuller, smoother body.
Eggs
Enrich and thicken the soup as they gently set when hot soup is poured over them.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, silkier mouthfeel and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot soup over the eggs. If the soup is poured in too fast or stirred too hard, the eggs can scramble into curds instead of blending smoothly. Adding the hot liquid slowly, while stirring gently, tempers the eggs so they thicken the soup evenly.

“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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