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Clam Chowder

A thick soup made with clams, onions, potatoes, salt pork, tomatoes, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, and hard‑tack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the clams finely and place them in a kettle with their liquor and 6 cups of water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Add the chopped onions, potatoes, salt pork, tomatoes, thyme, and pepper.

Simmer

  1. Let the mixture simmer slowly for several hours.

  2. If the chowder is too thick, add hot water.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce just before serving.

  2. Add the broken hard-tack before serving.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender texture in the chowder.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth as they break down and add body to the chowder.
Salt pork
Adds savory richness and fat that carries flavor through the long simmer.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during simmering.
Hard-tack
Soaks up liquid and thickens the chowder as it softens.

The step that matters

Simmering slowly for several hours. A gentle, prolonged simmer lets the potatoes and onions soften and release starch while flavors blend. Boiling hard can toughen clams and make the chowder cloudy or unevenly cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, potato, pork, tomato, thyme, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, pork, tomato, thyme, sauce, 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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