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Clam Fritters

A fried batter of clam meat, eggs, and spices, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams well with a thin brush to remove all sand.

  2. Place the clams in a pan in the oven until the shells open.

  3. Remove the clam meat.

  4. Strain the accumulated liquor, keeping it separate.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the clam meat, eggs, salt, pepper, baking powder, and clam liquor.

  2. Add flour to thicken the mixture.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot oil to fry, or cook on a pancake griddle.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  5. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Clam meat
Provides the main flavour and the bulk of each fritter.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the fritters puff up.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when dropped into oil.
Clam liquor
Adds moisture and concentrated clam flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Thickening the batter with flour. Too little flour leaves a loose batter that spreads and falls apart in hot oil, while too much makes the fritters dense and heavy. Adding it gradually lets you reach a spoonable consistency that holds its shape.

“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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