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Potato Chowder

A thick soup made with salt pork, onions, potatoes, milk, and water, simmered and thickened with butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Potato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the salt pork and onion together until both are a delicate brown.

  2. In a kettle, layer sliced potatoes, then the onion and pork, sprinkling with salt between layers.

  3. Pour the grease from the frying pan over the layers and add the water.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

  2. Thicken the milk with the flour mixed with the fat, then pour it over the potatoes.

  3. Stir carefully to avoid breaking the potatoes and serve very hot.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Potatoes
Form the body of the chowder and soften into tender pieces that give it substance.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the whole pot.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the broth becomes creamy rather than watery.
Milk
Provides the creamy base that the flour thickens into a smooth liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour and fat. Flour mixed with fat must be blended smoothly before it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Cooking it briefly lets the starch swell and thicken the milk evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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