Skip to main content
Main

Clam Fritters

Clam fritters are fried batter with chopped clams, black pepper, eggs, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk 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 clams

  1. Boil enough clams in water to yield 1 pint when chopped.

  2. Remove clams from shells when they open.

  3. Place the clams in a saucepan.

  4. Strain the clam liquor.

  5. Pour half of the clam liquor over the clams.

  6. Add black pepper and stew for 30 minutes.

  7. Remove the clams from the saucepan.

  8. Chop the clams finely.

  9. Discard the hardest parts of the clams.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour and milk until smooth.

  3. Stir the chopped clams into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until the fritters are light 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. Flour + milktop 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. Egg + milktop 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. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the fritters set firm when fried.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure, thickening it so the fritters hold their shape.
Milk
Loosens the flour into a smooth batter and adds moisture to the fritters.
Clams
Provide the main flavour and body of the fritters, as the chopped filling in the batter.
Lard
Conducts heat into the batter and helps the outside brown as the fritters fry.

The step that matters

Fry until light brown. Fritters fried in lard that is too cool soak up fat and turn greasy, while lard that is too hot browns the outside before the batter cooks through. Keep the fat steadily hot and check the interior is set.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes