Why it works: Clam and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Steamed Clams
Ingredients
Directions
Steam the clams until they open.
Dice the salt pork and cook it until crispy.
Serve the clams with the crispy salt pork and Boston brown bread.
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.
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Clam + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together305 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,371 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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, whose tender meat cooks quickly and turns firm when overcooked.
- Salt pork
- Renders fat as it crisps, adding savory richness and a crunchy contrast to the soft clams.
- Boston brown bread
- Adds a soft, slightly sweet, dense bread that soaks up clam juices and rendered fat.
The step that matters
Steam the clams until they open. Clams become tough and rubbery when overcooked, so they should be removed as soon as their shells open. Clams that stay closed before cooking should not be eaten.
“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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