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Scalloped Clams

A baked clam dish with a creamy sauce of milk, flour, corn starch, egg yolks, parsley, mace, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Scalloped Clams

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Drain and chop the clams.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, stir the flour and corn starch into the hot milk until thickened.

  2. Add the pounded egg yolks, minced parsley, mace, beaten raw egg yolk, salt, and pepper. Stir for one minute.

  3. Remove from heat and pour the sauce over the hot chopped clams.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill shells or small baking dishes with the mixture.

  2. Top with fine bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main body and seafood flavor of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the clams together.
Corn starch
Adds extra thickening so the sauce sets firmly and stays glossy.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it set when baked, adding richness and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over heat. Stirring the flour and corn starch into hot milk until thickened lets the starch swell and gelatinize, which gives body. Adding the egg yolks after the sauce has thickened, and not boiling hard, keeps the yolks from curdling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, flour, corn, egg, parsley, pepper. 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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