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Potato Chowder

A hearty soup made with sliced potatoes, salt pork, onions, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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

Fry the base

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

Layer and simmer

  1. In a kettle, layer sliced potatoes, then onions and pork, sprinkling with salt between layers.

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

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

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the milk with the flour mixed with the butter, then pour it over the potatoes.

  2. Stir carefully to avoid breaking the potatoes.

  3. 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 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
Provide the main body of the chowder and release starch that lightly thickens the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the grease that cooks the layers.
Milk
Adds creaminess and liquid richness to the finished chowder.
Flour
Its starch thickens the milk when heated, giving the chowder a fuller texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and mixing it with flour helps the flour blend smoothly.
Onion
Browning adds sweetness and aroma to the frying base.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour and butter. Flour clumps if added straight to hot liquid. Mixing it with butter first coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly. Heating the mixture then gelatinizes the starch and thickens the milk smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  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 potato, flour, pork, milk, butter. 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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