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NoYBS Clam Chowder

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

NoYBS Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder

  1. Fry the pork in a kettle until cooked, then remove and set aside, leaving the fat.

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

  3. Add the potatoes, onions, and flour mixture to the kettle with the pork fat.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, and boil for 30 minutes.

  5. Five minutes before serving, add the clams and milk, and return to a boil.

Serve

  1. Pour into a serving dish with the butter, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and crushed cracker or hard bread.

  2. 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 texture of the chowder.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften during boiling and give the chowder substance.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the clam liquid so the chowder becomes creamy rather than thin.
Pork
Its rendered fat adds savory richness to the base.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, firm texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and clams near the end. Once milk is added, boiling it hard for long can scorch it or cause it to curdle and separate. Adding the clams and milk only five minutes before serving, then bringing them just back to a boil, keeps the milk smooth and the clams tender rather than rubbery.

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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