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Baked Clams

Baked clams are clams baked with bread crumbs, butter, chives, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the clams

  1. Steam the clams in their shells until cooked.

  2. Remove the black heads and keep only the soft part of the clams, mixing it with bread crumbs.

Assemble

  1. Prepare five individual baking plates filled with rock salt.

  2. Place 6 oyster shells on each baking plate.

  3. On each shell, add 3 or 4 spoonfuls of the clam and bread crumb mixture.

  4. Top each with a butter ball made from butter, chopped chives, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Clam + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together111 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main savoury filling once steamed and chopped from their shells.
Bread crumbs
Absorb clam juices and bind the filling so it holds together on the shell.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the filling as it bakes.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, bread, oyster, butter, 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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