Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Fish Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fat
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.
Layer
Layer the fish, sliced potatoes, fried onions, and raw onions in the kettle, sprinkling with pepper and salt between layers.
When half the ingredients are used, add some crisped pork bits and cover with half of the split crackers, inside down.
Repeat layering with the remaining ingredients, finishing with the split crackers on top.
Simmer and serve
Cover the mixture 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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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).
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
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
- Hard white fish
- Forms the main body of the chowder and flakes into the broth as it cooks.
- Salt pork
- Adds savoury fat and crisp bits that flavour the chowder.
- Potatoes
- Thicken the broth as their starch releases and give the chowder body.
- Onions
- Add sweetness when fried brown and a sharper flavour when raw.
- Crackers
- Soak up cooking liquid and help thicken the chowder.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture when stirred in at the end.
The step that matters
Simmer for 1 hour without letting it burn. Sitting on the kettle base, the layers can scorch before the liquid is evenly hot. Keeping a gentle simmer and not a hard boil lets the fish stay tender and the potatoes and crackers thicken the broth without sticking.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, potato, butter, pepper, cream):
- Onionthe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Spinachfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, butter, pepper, cream. 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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