Skip to main content
Main

Clam Stuffed Eggs

Clam Stuffed Eggs are eggs filled with a mixture of clam liquor, milk, butter, onion, parsley, and mashed hard-boiled eggs, baked in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix warm milk and clam liquor with crushed crackers until moistened.

  3. Add beaten eggs, melted butter, onion, parsley, and mashed hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter clean clam shells.

  2. Fill the shells heaping full with the mixture.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake until browned.

  4. Serve hot or cold, perfect for lunch or picnics.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten and hard-boiled eggs bind the filling and give it a set, custard-like structure.
Crackers
Crushed crackers absorb the milk and clam liquor, giving the filling body and a soft texture.
Clam liquor
Adds moisture and the savory, briny flavor of clams to the filling.
Warm milk
Moistens the crackers and adds richness, keeping the filling tender as it sets.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Fill the shells heaping full and bake until browned. Egg-based fillings set through gentle heat, so the filling must be fully cooked through while not drying out. Mounding the filling and watching for browning helps the surface color without overbaking the eggs inside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes