Name: Minced Clams
Ingredients: clams; bread crumbs; butter; pepper

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Minced Clams

Ingredients

clams
bread crumbs
butter
pepper

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Boil the clams in their shells until they open.
Chop the clams finely.
Mix the chopped clams with bread crumbs, butter, and pepper.

Bake and serve

Fill the half shells with the mixture.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a short time, placing them in a large pan to keep them steady.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together125 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clams: Provide the main seafood filling and its briny flavor.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds together in the shell.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the filling brown lightly in the oven.

“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.