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Stuffed Clams

A dish of clams filled with bread, egg, butter, flour, tomato sauce, and herbs, then baked or cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine equal amounts of finely chopped clams and soaked bread in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and parsley and mix the seasoned mixture well.

  3. Add the yolk of one egg to the mixture and mix again.

Cook the filling

  1. In a frying pan, heat the butter until hot.

  2. Add the flour to the butter and stir until combined.

  3. Stir in the clam mixture and cook until browned.

  4. Add some tomato sauce and mix well.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the clam shells with the mixture.

  2. Top the filled shells with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Keep warm until served.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main savoury filling and flavour of the dish.
Bread soaked in milk
Adds moisture and a soft texture to the filling.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape in the shells.
Flour
Thickens the butter and clam mixture slightly as it cooks.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and sweetness and colours the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the clam mixture until browned. Browning the mixture in butter builds savoury flavour through browning reactions, but overcooking dries it out and makes the clams tough.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, bread, milk, pepper, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, bread, milk, pepper, egg, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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