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Corn Chowder

A creamy soup made with corn, potatoes, pork, onions, milk, crackers, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the pork into small pieces and render the fat in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onion and cook for five minutes, stirring often to prevent burning.

  3. Strain the fat into a clean saucepan.

  4. Parboil the potatoes in boiling water for five minutes, then drain.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the potatoes to the fat, then add two cups of boiling water.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are soft, then add the corn and milk.

  3. Heat to boiling point, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the butter.

Serve

  1. Soak the crackers in enough cold milk to moisten, then remove them.

  2. Serve the chowder in a tureen and place the crackers on top.

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. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Soften into the broth and thicken the chowder body as they cook.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavour through the whole chowder.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the chowder.
Crackers
Soaked in milk, they add starch that gives the chowder extra body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky finish when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Heating the milk to boiling point. Scalded milk added to a boiling chowder can curdle or scorch on the bottom of the pan. Heat gently and stir to keep the milk smooth and prevent sticking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, potato, pork, milk, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, pork, milk, butter, pepper. 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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