Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

A hearty soup made with clams, onions, potatoes, and split crackers, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Build the layers

  1. Cover the bottom of a kettle with thin slices of pickled pork or lard, and fry the pork.

  2. Add a layer of clams.

  3. Strew chopped onions, sliced potatoes, and split crackers over the clams.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and optional spices.

  5. Add another layer of clams and other ingredients until used up.

  6. Dredge the mixture with flour.

Stew and thicken

  1. Cover with clam liquor and water.

  2. Stew gently for about 30 minutes.

  3. Thicken the gravy by adding 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with 1 teacup of butter.

  4. Stew for a couple of minutes.

  5. Dish the chowder.

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. 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. Clam + potatotop 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and the chowder's body.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, helping the chowder feel substantial and creamy as they soften.
Flour
Dredged over the layers and mixed with butter to thicken the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor and smoothing the thickened gravy.
Pickled pork or lard
Provides fat and savory flavor from frying at the start.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour and butter. Adding flour mixed with butter at the end lets it thicken the liquid evenly. Stirring it in as a smooth paste avoids lumps, and a brief simmer cooks out the raw flour taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes