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Deviled Clams

A baked clam dish filled with a seasoned tomato and herb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Deviled Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the clams very fine.

  2. Chop the tomatoes, onion, parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram equally fine.

  3. Mix the chopped ingredients with salt, pepper, and enough clam juice to achieve a sausage-like consistency.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the clam shells with the mixture and place a lump of butter on each.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs and bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 of the filling and its briny, savoury flavour.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that bind the chopped filling together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as the dish bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Chopping the clams and vegetables very fine. Fine chopping lets the mixture bind into a uniform, sausage-like filling rather than loose pieces that fall apart. Even pieces also cook at the same rate in the shells.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, tomato, parsley, thyme, marjoram, pepper, bread):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, tomato, parsley, thyme, marjoram, pepper, bread. 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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