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Scalloped Clams

A baked dish of sliced potatoes, clams, crackers, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Layer the dish

  1. Layer sliced potatoes in an earthen baking pan, sprinkling with salt and butter.

  2. Add a layer of chopped clams, followed by a layer of crushed crackers, and season with salt and butter.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of crackers on top.

  4. Pour in enough milk to cover the layers.

Bake

  1. Cover the dish tightly and bake for 45 minutes.

  2. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Butter + clamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and soften as they bake in the milk.
Clams
Supply the main seafood flavor and savory character of the dish.
Crushed crackers
Add structure between layers and help thicken and brown the top.
Milk
Provides moisture that cooks the potatoes and forms a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly while baking. Covering traps steam so the potatoes cook through in the milk before the top is uncovered to brown. Uncovering too early can leave the potatoes firm and the milk unevenly set.

“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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