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Stewed Clams

A savory stew of clams cooked with butter, clam liquor, water, pepper, flour, and cream, served over toasted buttered bread cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Open the clams by placing a dull knife over the mouth and knocking with a hammer on a clean board.

  2. Wash the clams with a brush and strain the liquor.

  3. Remove the dark substance from the clams and chop them finely.

Make the stew

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped clams.

  2. Stew the clams for 10 minutes, then add the clam liquor, water, and pepper.

  3. Stew for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Thicken the stew with flour to achieve a creamy consistency.

  5. Just before serving, stir in a little cream or milk.

Serve

  1. Pour the clams over the toasted, buttered bread cubes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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 savory seafood flavor and body of the stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a creamy, smooth consistency.
Clam liquor
Adds concentrated briny clam flavor and moisture to the stew.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid long enough to dissolve and thicken smoothly; adding it unevenly can leave lumps or a raw starchy taste.

“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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