Name: Clam Chowder
Ingredients: 2 dozen clams; ½ pint water; 3 potatoes, diced; 4 sticks macaroni, broken into small pieces; 2 tablespoons butter; 3 tablespoons allspice; 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; a few sprigs of parsley, chopped; 1 quart milk

Why it works: Allspice and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,289 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the clam liquor with ½ pint of water.
Add the diced potatoes and broken macaroni.
Stir in the butter and allspice.
Finely chop the clams, then add the hard-boiled eggs and parsley to the broth.
When the mixture boils, stir in 1 quart of milk.

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.

Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,289 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together80 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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 texture of the chowder.
Potatoes: Add starch and body, giving the chowder substance and thickness as they cook.
Milk: Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the broth.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavour of the broth.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, potato, butter, egg, parsley, milk):

Nutmegfits better
Thymefits better
Dillfits better
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, butter, egg, parsley, 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.