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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup of fish, potatoes, onions, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the salt pork until browned in the bottom of a kettle.

  2. Cut the fish into pieces about 2 inches square, removing all bones.

Cook

  1. Remove the pork slices and layer the fish, potatoes, and onions in the kettle, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  2. Add water to just cover the last layer and cook slowly until the potatoes are done, keeping the kettle covered.

  3. Stir in the milk, heat it up, and pour into a tureen over the toasted crackers.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Salt pork
Renders fat and browns in the kettle, flavouring the base of the chowder.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and thicken the broth while giving the chowder body.
Fish
Provides the main protein, cooking gently in layers so it stays in pieces.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the broth when heated through.
Toasted crackers
Soak up the broth at the bottom of the tureen, adding texture and body.

The step that matters

Cook slowly with the kettle covered. Gentle, covered simmering cooks the potatoes through without breaking up the fish. Boiling hard can tear the fish apart and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, fish, milk, 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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