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Clam Soup

A soup made from clams, water, parsley, onion, mace, butter, flour, milk, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare the clams

  1. Boil the clams with their liquor and water for 3 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and remove the beards from the clams.

  3. Return the hard portions and liquor to the fire.

  4. Add parsley, onion, and mace.

  5. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Add the hot milk, then the strained clam liquor, and the reserved soft parts of the clams.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

  5. Mix well and serve.

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

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 parts that become the body of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the soup as the base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk and clam liquor into a smooth, creamy soup.
Milk
Adds richness, creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour cooked in melted butter forms a roux; if it is not stirred smoothly, it clumps and the soup turns lumpy instead of silky when the liquid is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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