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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with cod or haddock, potatoes, onions, salt pork, flour, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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. Cut the fish into convenient pieces.

  2. In a hot kettle, fry the salt pork slices until crisp, then remove them.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer the fish, potatoes, and onions in the kettle, dredging each layer with flour, salt, and pepper, and continue layering until all ingredients are used, then cover with cold water.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. When nearly done, add the milk and the soaked hard crackers, then boil for an additional 5 minutes.

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. 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. Onion + porktop 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

Cod or haddock
Provides the flaky protein that forms the body of the chowder.
Potatoes
Soften during boiling and thicken the broth as their starch releases.
Salt pork
Renders fat that flavours the kettle and adds savoury depth.
Flour
Dredged between layers, it helps thicken the broth as the chowder cooks.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the finished broth.
Hard crackers
Soaked and added near the end, they soften and thicken the chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the milk near the end. Milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard for a long time, so it is added when the chowder is nearly done and boiled only briefly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, potato, pork, flour, pepper, milk):

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

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

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