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Clam Pie

A baked pie with clams, diced potatoes, cream, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clam Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Separate the clams and chop the necks.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking dish with pie crust.

  2. Add the clams, potatoes, cream, salt, pepper, and clam liquor to the dish.

  3. Cover with a top crust and bake until 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Clam + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Clams
Provide the main savory flavor and texture of the filling.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thickens the filling as it bakes.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling turn smooth and tender.
Crackers
Crushed crackers add starch and absorb liquid, giving the filling more body.

The step that matters

Covering with the top crust and baking until golden brown. Baking must be long enough to cook the raw potatoes through and set the cream-based filling, while the crust browns. Browning happens from the Maillard reaction at the surface, so a crust that is pale or a filling still raw in the middle means the pie was underbaked or the oven was not hot enough.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, cream, pepper):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, cream, 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.

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