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Clam Fritters

Clam fritters made with clams, egg, milk, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Clam Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Run clams through a food chopper twice.

  2. Beat the egg until light.

  3. Mix clams, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and milk with the egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop 1 tablespoon of batter for each fritter onto a hot, greased griddle.

  2. Fry until brown, then turn and cook the other side.

  3. Serve hot, with or without lemon garnish.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together952 recipes

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

  5. Clam + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavor and bulk of the fritters.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the fritters hold their shape.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the fritters body and structure.
Milk
Moistens the mixture so it forms a spoonable batter.
Lard
Conducts heat to the griddle surface and browns the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying until brown, then turning. The batter needs enough heat for its surface to set and brown before turning; if the griddle is too cool, the fritters absorb fat and stay pale and soft inside.

“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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