Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, potatoes, pork, onions, and ship-bread or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Put the clams in a pot over medium heat with their own liquor and salt. Boil for about 3 minutes.

  2. Strain the clams and return the liquor to the pot.

Make the chowder base

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and fry the onion and pork until light brown. Stir in the flour and cook until thoroughly combined.

  2. Add the clam liquor, stock or milk, cream, mace, thyme, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Add the diced potatoes. Cook until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the diced clams. Add the broken ship-bread or crackers.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture in the chowder.
Butter
Carries fat for frying the onion and pork and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy base when cooked with the butter.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften during cooking and thicken the chowder.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the broth.
Ship-bread or crackers
Break down into the broth, helping to thicken and give body to the chowder.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the fried onion and pork. Cooking the flour in the fat until fully combined prevents lumps and removes raw starch taste, so the liquid thickens evenly when added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, butter, pork, onion, flour, milk, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, butter, pork, onion, flour, milk, 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.

More clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes