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Corn Chowder

A creamy soup made with corn, potatoes, salt pork, onions, and skim milk, served hot with croutons.

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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Scald the milk in a pot and add the corn.

  2. In a skillet, fry the salt pork until crispy, then add the minced onion and brown.

  3. Parboil the diced potatoes in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain.

Combine and cook

  1. Add the potatoes to the skillet with the pork and onions, along with boiling water to prevent scorching.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are tender, then add the mixture to the milk and corn.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and keep hot.

Serve

  1. Serve with two croutons dropped into each bowl.

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. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + milktop 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

Corn
Provides sweetness and the main body of the chowder.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the chowder and gives it a creamy, hearty texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor, and crisped pieces contribute browning to the base.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it browns in the pork fat.
Skim milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess and body to the chowder.

The step that matters

Parboiling and draining the potatoes. Parboiling partly cooks the potatoes so they become tender in the skillet without sticking or scorching. Adding boiling water to the skillet helps prevent the starches and sugars from burning on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, pork, 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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