Skip to main content
Main

Fish Chowder

A creamy chowder made with cod or haddock, potatoes, salt pork, onions, butter, milk, and Boston crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the fish.

  2. Remove the head and tail.

  3. Take out the backbone.

  4. Place the head and bones in a pan with 2 cups of cold water and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Cut the fish into 2-inch pieces.

  6. Set the fish pieces aside.

Make the chowder base

  1. Chop the salt pork.

  2. Fry the salt pork until browned.

  3. Brown the onion in the fat.

  4. Strain the fat into a kettle with the parboiled potatoes.

  5. Add 2 cups of boiling water to the kettle.

  6. Cook for 5 minutes.

  7. Add the fish stock and diced fish to the kettle.

  8. Cover the kettle.

  9. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, butter, and scalded milk.

  2. Soak the Boston crackers in the milk.

  3. Add the soaked crackers to the chowder.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Fish (in the method)
Provides the main body of the chowder, with flesh that flakes into the broth.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the broth while adding body.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat carries flavor into the onion and the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the finished chowder.
Boston crackers
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder slightly.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savory flavor at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the scalded milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard or is added to a very hot, acidic liquid. Scalding it first and adding it near the end, with the heat kept low, keeps the chowder smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More fish chowder recipes

New England 5Salt 3 See all 159 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes