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Clams Deviled

A baked dish of clams mixed with milk, butter, bread crumbs, spices, and chopped eggs, served in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clams Deviled

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 the filling

  1. Drain and chop the clams.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Add the butter and bread crumbs, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Mix in the clams, salt, pepper, cayenne, parsley, nutmeg, and chopped eggs.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the shells with the mixture, cover with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  2. Brown in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main savoury seafood flavour and the body of the filling.
Milk
Forms the base of a thick sauce that binds the filling together.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the milk and add body, and form a crisp, browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the filling as they are mixed through.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk and bread crumbs until thickened. Stirring constantly keeps the starch from clumping or scorching on the bottom of the pan, so the sauce thickens smoothly and evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, milk, butter, bread, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, milk, butter, bread, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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