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Clam Soup

A creamy soup made with clams, potatoes, milk, butter, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the clams very fine and drain them in a colander.

  2. Peel and chop the potatoes, then boil them with the milk in a double boiler.

  3. Rub the butter and flour together until creamy.

Make the soup

  1. After the milk and potatoes have boiled for 15 minutes, stir in the butter and flour mixture and cook for another 10 minutes.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and parsley, then stir in the clams and cook for 1 more minute before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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 texture of the soup.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thickens the soup as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its creamy richness.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving a smoother body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps bind the flour into the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour mixture. Adding the flour-butter paste to hot liquid without first blending it can leave lumps. Starch thickens the soup only as it heats, so the mixture should be worked in smoothly and cooked long enough to lose its raw floury taste.

“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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