Skip to main content
Main

Escaloped Clams

A baked clam dish with a creamy butter‑flour sauce and toasted breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Escaloped 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.

Cook the clams

  1. Place the clams in a pan with a little water and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until they open.

  2. Remove from the oven, take the clams from their shells, and save the liquor.

  3. Chop the clams finely and combine them with the liquor and ¼ cup of water in a saucepan.

  4. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter over low heat without browning it.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk and cook until it bubbles.

  4. Remove from heat and add the onion juice, salt, pepper, and cooked clams.

Bake and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the clam shells, sprinkle with buttered bread crumbs, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crumbs are golden brown.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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 substance and flavor of the filling.
Milk
Forms the creamy white sauce that binds the clams together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavor when melted with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Buttered bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned topping during baking.

The step that matters

Melting the butter without browning it. Browned butter changes the flavor and color of the white sauce, and the flour must cook in the fat without colouring so the sauce stays pale and smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, butter, flour, bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes