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Steamed Clams

Clams steamed until shells open, served with a butter, lemon, parsley sauce and warmed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Steamed Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Steam the clams

  1. Place the clams in a steamer without removing the shells, laying them flat.

  2. Set the steamer over a pot of boiling water, cover tightly, and maintain a hard boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Check if the shells have opened; if not, cover and steam for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Remove the clams from the steamer.

Prepare and serve

  1. Pry off the upper shells.

  2. Arrange the lower shells on a flat dish.

  3. In a bowl, whip the butter with lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt, and cayenne until creamy.

  4. Spoon the sauce over the clams.

  5. Serve hot with warmed crackers.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main protein, which cooks through in the steam while the shells open.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky, creamy texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Check that the shells have opened. Clams that stay closed after steaming may not be safe to eat, and the shells opening is the visible sign that they are cooked through. Closed clams that fail to open after the extra steaming should be discarded.

“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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