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Clam Fritters Without Egg

A fried batter of chopped clams, flour, baking powder, pepper, and salt, cooked in hot meat drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clam and meat work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Clam Fritters Without Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Chop the clams and add their liquor to a bowl.

  2. Mix in the flour, baking powder, pepper, and salt until combined.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot meat drippings.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

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 + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Clam + flourtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together576 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together952 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavor and bite, with their liquor adding moisture and brininess to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter, setting firm and crisp as the fritters fry.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying, lifting the fritters so they puff and stay light.
Clam liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated sea flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying in hot drippings. The fat must be hot enough that the batter sets and browns quickly on the outside. If the drippings are too cool, the fritters absorb grease, turn heavy, and cook through unevenly.

“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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