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Fricasseed Clams on Toast

A dish of clams served on toast with a sauce made from milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricasseed Clams on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Remove clams from their shells and scald them in their own liquor.

  3. Drain clams and cut them into pieces.

  4. Strain clam liquor into the milk.

  5. Add flour, butter, beaten egg yolks, salt, and cayenne to taste.

  6. Squeeze in lemon juice and add cut clams.

Serve

  1. Serve spoonfuls on toast cut into neat shapes or on fried crusts.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a smooth, creamy sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the sauce holds on the toast.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce that carries the clam flavour.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the hot milk mixture is too hot or they are added too quickly. Stir steadily and keep the heat gentle so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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