Skip to main content
Main

Clams, Philadelphia Style

Clams cooked with shallots, sherry, brandy, cream, egg yolks, and butter, served in a deep dish and garnished with small round rice croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Clams, Philadelphia Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Poach the clams in their own juice with enough water until firm to the touch, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, fry the shallots in butter without browning them.

  2. Add the clams to the pan and heat with sherry and brandy, seasoning with mignonette and salt.

  3. Just before serving, thicken the mixture with cream, egg yolks, and butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the clams in a deep dish, garnished with small round rice croquettes.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Form the main body of the dish and release juice that flavours the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture into a smooth, rich sauce when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and body, helping the sauce coat the clams.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the butter-fried sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or boils after adding them, they can scramble and turn grainy. Adding them just before serving, over gentle heat, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, sherry, brandy, pepper, cream, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, sherry, brandy, pepper, cream, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes