Name: Clam Pot-pie
Ingredients: clams; water; butter; pepper; pot pie crust

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 Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and wipe the clams, then place them in enough water to cover.
Boil the clams until they clear from the shells, then remove them.
Place the broth over the fire and bring to a boil.
Add the pot pie crust, cut into small pieces, and cover the pot closely.
Boil for one hour.
In a saucepan, heat the clams with a little butter and pepper.
Pour the clam mixture over the crust when ready to 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).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together952 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).