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Boiled Clams

A simple boiled clam dish seasoned with pepper and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the clams thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the clams in an iron pot with 2 quarts of water.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve in a large deep dish for each person to open their own clams while hot.

  4. Enjoy with pepper and vinegar.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Clam + vinegartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main ingredient, releasing their own liquor as they open and steam in the water.
Water
Forms the boiling liquid that steams the clams open and cooks them through.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes. Clams must be cooked until their shells open; boiling too briefly leaves them unsafe to eat and tough, while overcooking toughens the meat. Discard any that stay closed.

“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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