Name: Fish Chowder
Ingredients: ¼ pound pork, cut into pieces; potatoes, sliced; fish, cut into pieces; 2 onions, sliced; soda crackers; boiling water

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

Fry the pork pieces in the bottom of a pot.
Layer sliced potatoes over the pork.
Add a layer of fish pieces.
Sprinkle sliced onions on top.
Add a layer of soda crackers.
Repeat the layers until ingredients are used up.
Pour boiling water over the layers until well covered.
Stew for twenty-five 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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together668 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Potato + fishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).