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Clam Fritters

A batter of clams, milk, eggs, and flour fried into golden fritters.

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the raw clams finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine clam juice and sweet milk.

  3. Add 4 eggs to the mixture.

  4. Stir in enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Fry

  1. Fry the batter in hot oil 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. 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. Clam + flourtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together576 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Raw clams
Provide the main savory flavor and texture through the fritter.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a stiff batter that holds its shape.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Fry the batter in hot oil until golden brown. The oil must be hot enough to set the outside quickly, so the fritters brown and do not absorb excess oil or turn greasy. Frying too cool a pan makes them heavy and soggy.

“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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