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Deviled Clams

A baked clam dish with a sausage-like filling of chopped clams, tomatoes, onions, herbs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Deviled Clams

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. Chop the clams very fine.

  2. Chop the tomatoes and onion equally fine.

  3. Mix the clams, tomatoes, onion, parsley, thyme, sweet marjoram, salt, pepper, and enough clam juice to achieve a sausage-like consistency.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the clam shells with the mixture.

  2. Place a lump of butter on each filled shell.

  3. Cover with bread crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 body and seafood flavour of the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity to the chopped filling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as the shells bake.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Mix to a sausage-like consistency. Adding clam juice gradually until the filling holds together keeps it moist without making it runny. Too much liquid lets the filling spread and steam rather than set in the shell.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, tomato, parsley, thyme, marjoram, pepper, bread):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, tomato, parsley, thyme, marjoram, pepper, bread. 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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