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Clam Chowder

A soup of clams, potatoes, onions, fat pork, and milk, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Boil clams in 1 pint of water until they open easily.

  2. Remove the heads and chop the hard portion finely.

Make the base

  1. Fry the fat pork until thoroughly cooked, then add the sliced onion and cook until soft, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Cook the sliced potatoes in a small amount of water until tender.

Combine and serve

  1. In a kettle, combine the clam broth, potatoes, prepared clams, and onion with fat.

  2. Add pepper and salt if necessary, ensuring there is enough broth to cover the mixture.

  3. Let it simmer slowly, then break in some crackers.

  4. When ready to serve, stir in at least 1 pint of milk or more to taste.

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. Clam + porktop 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. 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and the chewy bits that define the chowder.
Fat pork
Adds savory fat and flavor to the base as it renders and cooks.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth slightly and give the chowder its body and bulk.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the broth as they break down during simmering.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the saltiness of the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the onion without burning it. Onions turn bitter and acrid when scorched, and that bitterness carries into the whole pot. Cooking them gently until soft releases their sweetness and builds a mild, savory base.

Swap the onion

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

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

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