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Fried Clams

Fried clams coated in egg and crumbs, then pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the clams from their shells.

  2. Beat the egg well and add 2 tablespoons of water.

  3. Dry the clams with a towel.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the clams first in the egg mixture, then in the cracker or bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the clams in sweet lard or butter until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft-shell clams
Provide the main body of the dish, cooked until tender inside a crisp coating.
Egg
Binds the crumbs to the clams so the coating adheres during frying.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Sweet lard or butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds fat flavour and browning to the coating.

The step that matters

Dry the clams before breading. Surface moisture keeps the egg and crumbs from sticking evenly and turns the coating soggy, so patting the clams dry lets the crust adhere and crisp in the hot fat.

“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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