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Fish Chowder

A layered fish chowder with pork, onions, crackers, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the pork slices in a saucepan until browned.

  2. Cut the pork into small pieces and place in a kettle with the drippings.

  3. Layer the onions over the pork, followed by the fish pieces.

Layer and season

  1. Season with white pepper, cayenne pepper, and coarse sea salt. Add parsley or cress if desired.

  2. Soak the crackers in hot water or milk until moist, then layer them on top.

  3. Repeat the layering process, omitting the pork for subsequent layers.

  4. Optionally, layer sliced raw potatoes between the onions and fish.

Simmer and finish

  1. Cover with cold water and let simmer for nearly an hour.

  2. For added richness, stir flour into the sweet cream and add it to the chowder.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pork + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat pork
Renders fat into the kettle that flavours the chowder base.
Fresh fish
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the pork drippings.
Crackers
Soaked until moist, they swell and help thicken the chowder.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the broth.
Flour
Helps thicken the cream so it blends smoothly into the chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the cream. Stirring flour into cream before it goes into the hot liquid helps prevent lumps, because flour dispersed in fat or cold liquid hydrates evenly rather than clumping.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, fish, white pepper, pepper, milk, cream):

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, fish, white pepper, pepper, milk, cream. 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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