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Soft Clams with Scallops

A seafood stew of clams and scallops thickened with a butter‑flour roux and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Soft Clams with Scallops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the cleaned clams and scallops.

  2. Pour in the white wine and season with pepper and salt.

Make and add the roux

  1. In a small pan, melt the butter and whisk in the flour to create a roux.

  2. Add the roux to the chafing dish to thicken the mixture.

Cook

  1. Simmer for 12 minutes until the clams and scallops are cooked through.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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. Clam + scalloptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

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 sauce with fat and adds a rich flavor as it melts.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid.
Scallops
Provide sweet, tender seafood that cooks quickly in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer for 12 minutes until cooked through. Clams and scallops turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be checked as they near doneness and removed once they just turn opaque and the clams open.

“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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