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Clam Chowder

A soup made with clams, potatoes, butter, flour, and optional tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams with cold water and reserve the liquor.

  2. Chop the clams.

Make the chowder

  1. Prepare the chowder like fish chowder, adding the clams with the potatoes.

  2. Heat the clam liquor to boiling. Strain the boiled liquor.

  3. Thicken the strained liquor with butter and flour.

  4. Stir the thickened mixture into the chowder just before serving.

  5. Add hot cooked tomatoes if desired.

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

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

  2. Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, making the chowder heartier as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and combines with flour to form a roux.
Flour
Thickens the strained clam liquor into a smooth, creamy base.

The step that matters

Thickening the strained liquor with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with the butter and blended smoothly into the liquid so it thickens evenly without lumps. Adding it stirred into the chowder just before serving keeps the base from becoming pasty or overly thick.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, potato, butter, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, 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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