Skip to main content
Soup

Clam Soup

A soup made from clams, water, butter, flour, egg yolks, milk, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Strain the liquid from the clams and chop them finely.

Make the soup

  1. In a porcelain kettle, combine the clams and boiling water; let it boil slowly for 2 hours.

  2. Cream the butter and flour together, then add to the kettle and let it boil once.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Finish with the egg and milk

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix with the fresh milk.

  2. Remove the soup from heat and stir in the egg and milk mixture. Do not boil after adding.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 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).

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 body of the soup, releasing their savoury liquor as they cook.
Butter and flour
Creamed together and boiled in, they thicken the soup slightly.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and give it a smooth, creamy texture when stirred in off the heat.
Fresh milk
Adds richness and creaminess, mellowing the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and milk mixture off the heat. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Removing the soup from heat before stirring in the mixture, and not boiling afterward, keeps it smooth.

“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.

More clam soup recipes

Mock 5Philadelphia 3 See all 191 →

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes