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Scalloped Clams

A baked dish of clams topped with bacon, breadcrumbs, celery, and butter.

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

Scalloped Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Clean the large clam shells carefully.

Fill the shells

  1. Place 2 soft clams into each shell.

  2. Add a touch of white pepper and 1½ teaspoons of minced celery to each shell.

  3. Dice a few slices of bacon and add 4 pieces to each shell.

  4. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top of each shell.

  5. Place a small piece of butter on top of each shell.

Bake

  1. Bake until 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. White pepper + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft clams
Provide the main seafood filling that cooks in the shell and becomes tender.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the clams as it renders during baking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that absorbs butter and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives a rich flavour.
Minced celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma that balances the richness of the bacon and butter.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. The record gives no time, so the cook must judge doneness by colour. Clams turn tough when overcooked, while the topping needs enough heat to brown properly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, celery, bread, butter. 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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