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Clam Stew

A savory stew of clams, milk, butter, and crackers, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clam shells clean.

  2. Place clams in a kettle with water and steam until the shells open.

  3. Remove clams from shells and strain the juice.

Make the stew

  1. Return the juice and clams to the kettle and bring to a boil.

  2. Add milk, butter, crushed crackers, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir well and serve hot.

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 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

Hard-shell clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the stew.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the stew and adds mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savory flavor to the broth.
Crackers
Crushed crackers thicken the stew slightly and add body.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil before adding the milk. Milk can curdle or scorch when it is boiled hard or left too long over direct heat. Adding it after the clam juice has come to a boil, and keeping the heat moderate, helps keep it smooth and prevents sticking to the bottom of the kettle.

“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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