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Scalloped Deviled Clams

A baked clam dish with a creamy tomato and onion sauce, topped with cracker crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Deviled Clams

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the clams

  1. Chop the clams finely and place them in a closed vessel over boiling water.

Make the sauce

  1. In a skillet, fry the sliced onion in butter until light brown, then strain out the onion.

  2. Return the butter to the skillet, add chopped tomatoes, mace, salt, and paprika, and cook for 4 minutes.

  3. Dust the mixture with flour, remove from heat, and stir in the frothed eggs.

  4. Add the clams to the mixture, fill scallop or clam shells, and cover with cracker crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot the tops with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes or until browned.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Set and bind the mixture so it holds together when baked.
Flour
Thickens the mixture slightly as it cooks with the butter and tomatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onion brown and the topping crisp and colour.
Tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and body to the sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the frothed eggs off the heat. Eggs thicken when heated, so adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them. Removing the pan from the heat first lets them bind the filling smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, onion, tomato, flour, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, onion, tomato, flour, egg. 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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