Why it works: Haddock and swordfish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Fish Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the layers
Fry the salt pork in a chowder kettle until crisp, then remove and set aside.
Fry 2 sliced onions in the pork fat until brown, then remove and set aside.
Layer the fish, sliced potatoes, fried onions, raw onions, pepper, and salt in the kettle, repeating layers until half the ingredients are used.
Add small pieces of the crisped pork and cover with half of the split crackers, inside down.
Repeat layering with the remaining ingredients, finishing with the remaining split crackers on top.
Cook and serve
Cover the chowder with cold water and bring to a gentle boil.
Simmer for 1 hour, ensuring it does not burn.
Stir in the cream just before serving, and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.
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.
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Haddock + swordfishtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Forms the main body of the chowder and becomes flaky and tender as it simmers.
- Potatoes
- Thicken the broth as they cook and give the chowder its body.
- Salt pork
- Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the whole pot.
- Onions
- Add sweetness when browned and aroma when cooked in the broth.
- Butter crackers
- Soak up liquid and help thicken the broth as the chowder simmers.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the finished chowder.
The step that matters
Simmering without scorching. The chowder sits on the base of the kettle for an hour. Starches and sugars in the potatoes, onions and crackers can stick and scorch at the bottom, so the heat should stay low and gentle enough to keep the liquid at a bare simmer.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, haddock, swordfish, pork, potato, butter, pepper):
- Tomatofits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Chivefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, haddock, swordfish, pork, potato, butter, pepper. 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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