Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Clam Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add the chopped clams and clam juice to the eggs.
In a separate bowl, mix the baking powder with the flour.
Combine the flour mixture with the clam mixture and stir until well combined.
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.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Clam + flourtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together576 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Clam + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together337 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
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