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Oyster Chowder

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the sliced potatoes in boiling water until tender.

  2. Fry the onion and salt pork in a pan until they begin to color.

Make the chowder

  1. Strain the onion and salt pork into the oysters.

  2. Cook the oysters in their own liquor until plump.

  3. Add the cooked potatoes, cracker crumbs, and finally the milk.

Ripen and serve

  1. Keep the chowder hot and let it stand for 30 minutes to ripen.

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. Onion + potatotop 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

Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and the chowder's characteristic briny taste.
Potatoes
Add body and soft starch that gives the chowder substance.
Milk
Supplies creaminess and moisture, rounding out the broth.
Salt pork
Adds rendered fat and savory depth to the base.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it softens and colors in fat.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the chowder slightly.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until plump. Oysters toughen and shrink when overheated, because their proteins tighten under prolonged heat. Cook them only until they plump and their edges curl, then add the milk and keep the chowder hot without boiling it hard.

Swap the onion

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

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

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