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Clam Chowdee

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Chowdee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Put the clams with their liquor into a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Boil for 3 minutes, then remove the clams and return the liquor to the heat.

Make the chowder base

  1. In a separate pan, fry the salt pork and chopped onion until browned.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Slowly add the clam liquor, mace, thyme, and salt if needed.

  4. Add the diced potatoes and cook until tender.

  5. Stir in the milk or cream and the chopped clams.

  6. Top with broken ship 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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main flavor and texture, and their liquor adds savory seafood flavor to the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat and browns, adding savory depth to the base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a creamy base as it cooks with the fat.
Potatoes
Add body and starch, making the chowder heartier and thicker.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the chowder.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cook for a minute. Cooking flour with the fat and browned drippings removes its raw taste and lets it thicken the liquid evenly. Adding the clam liquor too quickly or skipping this cooking can leave lumps or a pasty flavor.

Swap the mace

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

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

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