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Clam Soup

A soup made from clam liquor, clams, water, milk, butter, flour, parsley, onion, mace, pepper, and sea salt, served with Boston crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the broth

  1. Combine clam liquor, boiling water, onion, and hard parts of clams in a pot over heat.

  2. Stir gently for 20 minutes after boiling begins, then strain and season.

  3. Return the strained liquid to the pot with finely chopped soft parts of clams and boil slowly for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In another vessel, scald the milk until hot.

  2. Stir in the floured butter and cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the clam soup to the milk mixture and pour into a tureen lined with buttered Boston crackers.

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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 body of the soup from their meat and liquor.
Clam liquor
Carries the clam flavour and forms the base of the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the briny clam taste.
Butter
Adds richness, and with the flour it thickens the soup slightly.
Boston crackers
Soak up the hot liquid, giving the soup a soft, bread-like body.

The step that matters

Adding the floured butter to the hot milk. Flour mixed into butter must be cooked briefly to remove its raw taste and to thicken smoothly. Stirring it into milk that is hot but not boiling helps prevent lumps and curdling, so the soup stays silky.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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