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Oyster Chowder

A chowder made with pickled pork, potatoes, onions, oysters, water, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder

  1. Cut the pork into small pieces and fry in a kettle.

  2. Add the onions and 1 quart of water; cook partially.

  3. Add the potatoes and another quart of water; cook until tender.

  4. Stir in the milk and oysters; season to taste.

Serve

  1. Add crackers just before serving.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pickled pork
Fried first to render fat and flavour the broth.
Potatoes
Cook until tender, thickening the chowder and adding body.
Oysters
Add briny flavour and tender texture when stirred in near the end.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink if boiled hard, so they should be stirred in near the end and heated gently just until they curl. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils vigorously.

Swap the onion

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

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

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