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Clam Chowder

A soup made with potatoes, onions, salt pork, clams, and oyster crackers, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the base

  1. Combine the sliced potatoes, chopped onions, and chopped salt pork in a pot.

  2. Cover the pot with boiling water.

  3. Boil for about 45 minutes, being careful not to scorch.

Add the clams

  1. Chop the clams and save the clam liquor.

  2. Add the chopped clams and their liquor to the pot.

  3. Let it come to a boil briefly.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Potato + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch thickens the broth and gives the chowder body as they soften.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat adds savoury flavour to the broth.
Onions
They add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Clams
They contribute the main seafood flavour and brininess to the chowder.

The step that matters

Boil for about 45 minutes without scorching. Potato starch can stick and burn on the bottom of the pot if heat is too high or the pot is left unstirred, giving a bitter, scorched taste that spoils the whole chowder.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, oyster, clam, 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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