Name: Clam Chowder
Ingredients: clams; water; pepper; lemon juice or vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

clams
water
pepper
lemon juice or vinegar

Directions

Wash the clams thoroughly.
Place the clams in a large pot with enough boiling water to prevent burning.
Cover the pot to keep the steam in and cook for about 15 minutes until the clams open.
Remove the clams from the pot and reserve the broth.
Trim off the 'eather straps' and boil them separately in a small amount of water.
Add the broth from the boiled straps to the chowder before serving.
Serve the clams in their shells, seasoned with pepper, lemon juice, or vinegar.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Clam + lemontop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Clam + peppertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together952 recipes

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