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Clam Chowder

A thick soup made with clams, pork, vegetables, crackers, and milk, seasoned with black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the chopped clams with their liquor over the fire.

  2. Add 2-3 times the amount of clam juice or water.

  3. In a separate pan, cook the fat salt pork until crispy, then add it to the clams.

  4. Add the chopped onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and parsley to the pot.

  5. Gradually stir in the rolled crackers.

  6. Two minutes before the chowder is done, add the milk and season with black pepper.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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 seafood flavor and bulk of the chowder.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and adds savory richness to the base.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that help thicken the chowder as they soften.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the broth as their starch absorbs liquid and swells.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard for long. Adding it only two minutes before the end, over gentle heat, keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, carrot, potato, tomato, pork, milk):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, carrot, potato, tomato, pork, milk. 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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