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A Maine Clam Chowder

A creamy clam chowder made with clams, potatoes, onions, pork, milk, eggs, butter, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

A Maine Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the diced pork in a kettle until cooked.

  2. Stir the flour into the clam water and water mixture for thickening.

  3. Add the chopped potatoes and onions to the kettle with the pork.

  4. Pour in the thickened clam water and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Boil for about 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the pork and add the clams and milk five minutes before serving.

  2. Once it reaches a boil, pour into a serving dish with the sliced butter, chopped eggs, and broken cracker.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender chewy texture in the chowder.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften during boiling and give the chowder its substance.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the clam liquid so the chowder becomes creamy rather than watery.
Pork
Renders fat into the kettle that flavors the onions and broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that rounds out the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and clams near the end. Milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard for long, and clams turn tough and rubbery when overcooked. Adding them five minutes before serving keeps the milk smooth and the clams tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, milk, egg, pork, butter, flour. 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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