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Scolloped Clams

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scolloped Clams

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Thoroughly clean the clam shells and set aside.

  2. Boil a sufficient quantity of small sand clams in water until the shells open.

  3. Remove the clams from the shells, drain, and chop them into small pieces, discarding the toughest parts.

  4. Season the chopped clams with black pepper and powdered mace.

  5. Mix the seasoned clams with grated bread crumbs and fresh butter.

  6. Fill the cleaned clam shells with the mixture, moistening slightly with clam liquor.

  7. Top each filled shell with additional grated bread crumbs and a small piece of butter.

  8. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

  9. Serve in the shells on suitable dishes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Clam + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, pepper, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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