Name: Stuffed Clams, Florentine
Ingredients: clams; spinach; butter; bread crumbs; Parmesan cheese; salt; pepper

Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Stuffed Clams, Florentine

Ingredients

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Shuck the clams and reserve the shells.
Sauté spinach in butter until wilted.
Mix spinach with bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.
Stuff the clam shells with the mixture.
Place the stuffed clams on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

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.

Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Spinach + parmesan cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together889 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, bread, parmesan cheese, pepper):

Potatofits better
Tomatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, bread, parmesan cheese, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.