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Roast Clams

Roasted clams served with butter, pepper, and a sauce of clam juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Clam and butter work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 840 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roast Clams

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scrub the shells of the clams.

  2. Stand the clams on their hinges in a baking pan.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes until firm.

  2. Remove one shell.

  3. Place a piece of butter on each clam.

  4. Serve hot.

  5. Strain the juice into a sauceboat.

  6. Add a lump of butter and pepper to the sauce.

  7. Serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together952 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

Clams
Provide the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the clams and into the juices.
Pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite to the buttered sauce.

The step that matters

Roast until just firm. Clams turn rubbery when overcooked, since their proteins tighten under prolonged heat. Pulling them as soon as they firm keeps them tender and juicy.

“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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