Name: Fish Chowder
Ingredients: 1 good haddock, cod, or any solid fish, cut into 3-inch pieces; 1 pound salt pork, cut into strips; 1 quart sliced potatoes; flour; water; pepper; coarse sea salt (to taste); army crackers or pilot bread (for serving)

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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the salt pork in a pot until browned, then remove it.
Layer the fish pieces in the pot, followed by a layer of sliced onions, then another layer of fish, and strips of pork, repeating until all ingredients are used.
Mix flour with water, season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and add the sliced potatoes.
Boil the mixture for 45 minutes.
Add army crackers or pilot bread to the chowder and 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.

Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Haddock + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together171 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, pork, flour, pepper, bread):

Potatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits less well
Mustardfits less well

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