Name: Devilled Clams
Ingredients: 1 pint clams; 3 hard boiled eggs; 1 cup bread crumbs; 1 cup clam juice; 1 cup milk; 1 tablespoon butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; parsley (optional)

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 ↓

Devilled Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the bread crumbs in clam juice and milk.
Chop the clams finely and the eggs coarsely.
Mix clams, eggs, salt, pepper, and butter together.
Fill the clam shells with the mixture.
Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and add a small piece of butter on each.
Garnish with chopped parsley if desired.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

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

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

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, egg, bread, milk, butter, pepper):

Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Thymefits less well
Cinnamonfits less well

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