Name: Clam Bake
Ingredients: clams; fine brush; dry sage; larger brush; tomato sauce or cauliflower sauce or catsup; butter; spices to taste

Why it works: Clam and butter work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 840 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clam Bake

Ingredients

Directions

Lay the clams on a rock, edge downward, forming a circle.
Cover them with fine brush, then dry sage, and finally larger brush.
Set the whole on fire and watch until the brush and sage are more than half burnt.
Check the clams by pulling some out; if done, brush off the fire and cinders.
Mix tomato sauce or cauliflower sauce or catsup with the clams after removing them from their shells.
Add butter and spices to taste, then 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.

Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sage + tomatotop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together417 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,312 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Clam + tomatotop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together133 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).