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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, salt pork, onions, potatoes, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Boil the clams in water until cooked, then remove them from their shells.

  2. Strain the clam liquor and set aside.

Cook the base

  1. Fry the diced salt pork and chopped onion in a pan until brown and crisp.

  2. Cook the sliced potatoes in water until tender, then drain.

  3. Add the clam liquor, pork scraps, onion, and clams to the pot with the potatoes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a separate pan, then stir in the flour and mix with some of the hot clam liquor.

  2. Combine the mixture with the chowder and add the rich milk.

  3. Serve hot with 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Clams
Provide the main flavour and texture of the chowder.
Salt pork
Adds savoury fat and browned flavour from the frying.
Potatoes
Add body and bulk, becoming tender in the chowder.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux.
Flour
Thickens the chowder by gelatinising with the hot liquid.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and moisture to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with butter and hot clam liquor. Flour clumps if added directly to liquid. Cooking it in fat first and mixing it with hot liquid spreads the starch evenly, so the chowder thickens smoothly rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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