Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Wash the clams thoroughly and place them in a pot with ½ pint of water.

  2. Cook until the shells open, then remove the clams from the shells and chop them finely, saving the clam water.

Make the chowder

  1. In a frying pan, gently fry the salt pork until browned, then remove the scraps.

  2. In the same pan, fry the chopped onions until delicate.

  3. Add 1 quart of hot water to the onions, then stir in the clams, clam water, and pork scraps.

  4. Once boiling, add the potatoes and cook until tender.

Finish and season

  1. Before serving, thicken the chowder with 1 cup of powdered crackers and stir in 1 quart of fresh milk.

  2. If the chowder is too rich, add more water 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 (quahogs)
Provide the main seafood flavor and the chopped meat that gives the chowder its body.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it browns, carried into the broth.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking to add starchy body and bulk to the chowder.
Powdered crackers
Starch that thickens the liquid so the chowder becomes creamier.
Fresh milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with powdered crackers. Crackers must be stirred in before serving so their starch hydrates and thickens the liquid evenly; added to a cold or still-boiling pot they can clump or leave the broth thin.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, onion, potato, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

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

More clam chowder recipes

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes