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Deviled Clams

A clams dish simmered in broth, mustard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Clam and butter work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 840 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Deviled Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the chicken or veal broth.

  2. Add mustard and season to taste.

  3. Thicken the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the clams and butter.

  2. Cook until heated through and serve.

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

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

  2. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Clam + chickentop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
The main ingredient, added near the end so they only need to heat through.
Chicken or veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds savory flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, rounder texture.

The step that matters

Cook the clams until just heated through. Clam meat toughens and turns rubbery when overheated. Stirring them in near the end and heating only until warm keeps them tender.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, chicken, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, chicken, 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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