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Scalloped Clams

A baked dish of soft clams topped with white pepper, celery, bacon, cracker dust, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Scalloped Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Purchase a dozen large soft clams in the shell and three dozen opened clams.

  2. Ask the dealer to open the first dozen, being careful not to injure the shells.

  3. Clean the shells well and place two soft clams on each half shell.

Season and top

  1. Add a dash of white pepper and ½ teaspoon of minced celery to each shell.

  2. Cut a slice of fat bacon into small dice and add four pieces to each shell.

  3. Strew a thin layer of cracker dust over the top and place a piece of butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until 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. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Clam + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Celery + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clam + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together47 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Soft clams
Form the main seafood filling and supply most of the dish's flavor.
Fat bacon
Renders fat that moistens the clams and adds savory flavor.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, browned layer over the top of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and turn golden.
Celery
Adds a mild, fresh aromatic note to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until brown. Clam protein tightens and turns rubbery when overheated for too long, so the dish should be pulled once the topping browns.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, celery, 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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