Name: Mixed Vegetable Chowder
Ingredients: ½ pound salt pork or bacon; 1 onion; 6 medium-sized tomatoes or 1 pint stewed tomatoes; 1 green pepper; 4 medium-sized potatoes; 3 carrots; 2 cups skim milk; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 teaspoons salt

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 ↓

Mixed Vegetable Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the bacon or pork, onion, and pepper together and cook in a pot for about five minutes.
Add the water and tomatoes, then cook until the vegetables are tender.
Cut the potatoes and carrots into small pieces and cook in water until tender, then drain.
Add the drained potatoes and carrots along with the skim milk to the pot.
Thicken the chowder with flour mixed with a little cold milk.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits about as well
Okrafits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, pepper, potato, carrot, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.