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Stuffed Clams

A dish of clams filled with a breadcrumb and egg mixture, fried in butter and seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the clams very fine.

  2. Soak the bread crumbs in milk and add them to the clams in equal amount.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and parsley, then mix well.

  4. Add the yolk of one egg to the mixture and combine.

Cook and fill

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the clam mixture to the hot butter and fry.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce.

  4. Fill the clam shells with the mixture and keep warm until served.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main body and seafood flavor of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk and help bind the filling so it holds together.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and keeps the filling moist.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness to hold the filling together.
Butter
Fat for frying the mixture, adding richness and browning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, bread, milk, pepper, parsley, egg, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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

“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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