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Stewed Clams

A simple stew of clams cooked with butter, flour, clam liquor, cream, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the clams and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until combined.

  3. Slowly add the clam liquor and then the clams.

  4. Cook for three minutes.

  5. Stir in the cream and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Enriches the stew and carries flavour, and with the flour starts the base that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the clam liquor into a smooth, lightly bound stew.
Clam liquor
Provides the main liquid and the briny clam flavour of the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture while mellowing the briny flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and clam liquor. Flour must be stirred into the melted butter so no lumps form, then the liquor added slowly so the mixture thickens smoothly rather than clumping. Cream should be stirred in at the end, after the stew has cooked, so it does not curdle or separate from prolonged boiling.

“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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