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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, potatoes, onions, and salt pork.

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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the salt pork finely and fry until brown.

Make the chowder

  1. In a pot, layer some fried pork, followed by sliced onions, sliced potatoes, and clams.

  2. Pour in the clam liquor and add enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper and a little coarse sea salt.

  4. Cook until the potatoes are tender, then add the hot milk and simmer for 3 hours.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the cream and butter.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 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 bite, with their liquor adding brininess to the broth.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth as they cook down and give the chowder its body.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries savory, smoky flavor through the pot.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the broth during the long simmer.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and simmering. Milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard for a long time. Keeping the chowder at a gentle simmer for the full three hours keeps the milk smooth and prevents it from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, pork, milk, cream, 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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