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Deviled Clams

A fried clam mixture with butter, breadcrumbs, mustard, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Deviled Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs, then add the clams, which should be perfectly drained and finely chopped.

  3. Let the mixture boil once, then add the mustard, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

  4. Boil the mixture once more, then remove from heat and let it cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the mixture in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood filling that gives the dish its flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling together and enrich its texture as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and add body to the filling, and help the outer coating brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the bread crumbs toast in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooling before coating. The filling must cool so it firms up enough to hold its shape. If it is still warm or loose, it will not stay together when dipped in egg and crumbs and fried.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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