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Egg Chowder

A creamy soup made with potatoes, onions, peppers, water, milk, and eggs.

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 ↓

Egg Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat olive oil in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Add sliced potatoes, chopped onion, and chopped Spanish peppers.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add water and boil until potatoes are soft.

  4. Stir in sweet milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Beat eggs separately, then add them to the kettle.

  6. Cook for one minute after adding eggs, then remove from heat.

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. Olive + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy body that thickens and gives the chowder its substance.
Eggs
Set into the hot liquid to add richness and body to the chowder.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Onion
Builds savory aromatic flavor as it softens in the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs. Eggs cook quickly in hot liquid, so beaten eggs added to a boiling chowder can curdle or turn grainy if overcooked. Cooking for only one minute after adding them sets the eggs gently while keeping the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, potato, pepper, milk, egg. 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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