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Potato Chowder

A creamy potato chowder made with butter, milk, flour, and vegetables, served hot with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the onions in butter.

Make the chowder

  1. Layer the diced potatoes in the bottom of a kettle, followed by layers of parsley, celery, and onion until all ingredients are used.

  2. Add boiling water and simmer for 40 minutes without stirring.

  3. Add milk, reserving enough to make a thin, smooth paste with flour.

  4. When the milk is hot, bind it with the flour paste and stir constantly until boiling.

  5. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot with croutons.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the chowder and soften as they simmer, giving body to the broth.
Butter
Carries the flavor of the browned onions and adds richness to the chowder.
Flour
Mixed into a paste and stirred into the milk, it thickens the chowder as it boils.
Milk
Makes the broth creamy and, thickened with flour, gives the chowder its smooth body.
Onions
Browned in butter first, adding sweetness and savory depth to the chowder.

The step that matters

Binding the milk with the flour paste. Flour lumps if added directly to hot liquid. Making a thin, smooth paste first lets the starch disperse evenly. Constant stirring until boiling keeps the thickening smooth and fully activated.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, butter, parsley, pepper, 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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