Skip to main content
Main

Fried Clams

Fried clams coated in a batter of egg yolks, milk, flour, and egg whites, then fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fried Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in a vessel without water, covering it closely until they open.

  2. Remove the clams from their shells and dry them with a napkin.

  3. Season the clams with pepper and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then mix in the milk and enough flour to form a batter.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a pan, then drop in a spoonful of batter.

  2. Place 2-3 pieces of clam on top of the batter, then cover with more batter.

  3. Fry on both sides until golden brown and serve hot.

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. Pepper + flourtop 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

Small sand clams
Provide the main seafood filling enclosed in the batter.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter with fat and help bind it smoothly.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they make the batter light and airy.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so it coats and holds the clams.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
Hot lard
Conducts heat to fry the batter, browning it and crisping the surface.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, which lightens the batter. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense, heavy coating.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes