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Clam Fritters

Clam fritters are fried batter made with clams, milk, eggs, flour, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Clam Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Chop the clams if desired and combine them in a bowl with the milk, eggs, clam liquor, salt, and pepper.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a thin batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan over medium‑high heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown on both sides.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavour and bulk of the fritter, with their liquor adding savoury seafood taste.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help the fritters set and hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Thickens the milk and eggs into a batter that coats the clams and sets as it fries.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter, keeping the interior tender.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and helps the outside brown evenly and crisp.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard. The lard must be hot before the batter goes in, so the surface sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the batter soaks up oil, turns greasy, and the fritters cook unevenly.

“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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