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Stewed Clams

A simple stew of clams cooked with water, butter, cayenne pepper, salt, and finished with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in a pot, covering it tightly.

  2. Set the pot near the fire and wait for the clams to begin opening.

  3. Once opened, remove the clams from their shells and drain them.

Stew and finish

  1. In a pot, combine the clams with ½ cup of water, butter, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Let the mixture stew for 10 minutes.

  3. Just before serving, stir in ½ cup of cream.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, and their briny juices season the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and the flour it is rolled in helps thicken the liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently after the clams are out of their shells. Clams turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, so the stew should simmer gently for the stated time rather than boil hard. Cream added at the end is less likely to separate when it is not overheated.

“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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