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Clam Chowder

A soup of clams, potatoes, salt pork, crackers, and cream, seasoned with white pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the salt pork in a saucepan until crisp.

  2. Layer the clams and sliced potatoes with the white pepper in the saucepan.

  3. Add the clam liquor and enough water to cook the potatoes.

  4. Once the potatoes are tender, add the broken crackers and let it boil for a moment.

  5. Stir in the cream and add coarse sea salt if necessary, then serve.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  4. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Boston crackers
Break down slightly when boiled, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and browns the pan for a savory base.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and savory, briny character to the broth.
Sliced potatoes
Soften as they cook, adding starch and body to the chowder.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Adding the cream. Cream should be stirred in off the boil or over gentle heat, since prolonged vigorous boiling can cause it to separate and turn grainy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, cream, clam, potato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, cream, clam, potato. 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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