Name: Clam Sauce on Toast
Ingredients: 1 cup clam liquor; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; Salt to taste; White pepper to taste; 1 blade mace; Butter

Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Clam Sauce on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, boil the butter and clam liquor.
Add the clams and boil for eight minutes.
Stir in the lemon juice, season with salt and white pepper.
Serve the sauce over toast.

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.

White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + white peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,315 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).