Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Soft Clams

Stewed Soft Clams is a dish of clams simmered with butter, white pepper, Madeira wine, truffles, eggs, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Soft Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Thoroughly wash the clams to remove all sand.

  2. Place the clams in your left hand and carefully remove the body with your right hand, discarding all other parts.

Stew and finish

  1. In a stewpan, combine the clams, butter, white pepper, Madeira wine, and truffles.

  2. Cover the pan and cook gently for 7-8 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sweet cream together for 3 minutes.

  4. Pour the egg and cream mixture over the clams and gently toss the saucepan for 3 more minutes without boiling.

  5. Serve immediately in a hot dish.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Madeira wine + truffletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together195 recipes
  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main body of the dish, with their delicate flavor carried by the stew.
Eggs
Set into a silky, custard-like coating that thickens the cream around the clams.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, combining with the eggs to form a smooth sauce.
Truffles
Contribute a deep, earthy aroma that perfumes the stewed clams.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and cream mixture over the clams and toss without boiling. Eggs thicken when heated but curdle if they get too hot, so the mixture should be gently warmed and never allowed to boil.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, madeira wine, truffle, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, madeira wine, truffle, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes