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Clam Soup

Clam soup made with clams, water, corn starch, milk, butter, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Cook the clams

  1. Open the clams and place them in an enameled kettle with boiling water.

  2. Boil the clams, removing any scum that rises.

Thicken and finish

  1. Stir corn starch into milk with salt, pepper, and butter; pour over the clams.

  2. Boil until the starch is cooked.

  3. Beat the egg with a little milk, then remove the kettle from the heat.

  4. Carefully stir in the beaten egg to avoid stringiness.

  5. 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. Strawberry + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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

Strawberry clams
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes creamy and smooth.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the starch thickens.
Egg
Enriches and thickens the soup, adding richness when stirred in gently.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when they meet high heat and can form stringy curds. Removing the kettle from the heat first and stirring carefully keeps the egg smooth and evenly blended.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, corn, milk, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, corn, milk, pepper, butter, egg. 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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