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Clam Fritters

A fried batter of clams, eggs, milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Clam Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Rinse clams in cold water to remove bits of shell.

  2. Chop clams finely.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs.

  2. Add milk, flour, salt, and pepper to the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the chopped clams.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the mixture in hot oil 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Clam + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 flavor and texture, folded through the batter as chopped pieces.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help the fritters set and hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Provides the body of the batter so the fritters hold together and turn crisp at the edges.
Milk
Thins the batter to a workable consistency and adds moisture to the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess oil and turn greasy instead of browning. Hot oil sets the outside quickly, so the inside cooks through without the batter spreading or burning.

“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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