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Deviled Clams, No. 1

A baked clam dish with butter, breadcrumbs, paprika, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Deviled Clams, No. 1

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Open the clams and remove the meat.

Fill and bake

  1. Chop the clam meat and mix with melted butter, bread crumbs, paprika, salt, and pepper.

  2. Spoon the mixture back into the clam shells.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes until golden 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main filling, adding savory seafood flavor and chewy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the topping brown.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body and a crisp, golden topping.
Paprika
Adds mild color and a gently sweet, smoky aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until golden brown. Baking long enough lets the buttered crumbs toast and the filling heat through, while overbaking can dry the clam meat and make the crumbs bitter.

“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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