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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with haddock, salt pork, onions, potatoes, bread crumbs, milk, and tomato ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a pot, fry the salt pork until brown.

  2. Add the chopped onions and a layer of haddock pieces.

Layer and cook

  1. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and add a layer of sliced potatoes.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients and let cook.

  4. When nearly done, add the milk and let it scald.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the tomato ketchup.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the chowder as the flaky fish that cooks through in the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat as it browns, adding savory flavor to the base of the chowder.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the chowder body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth when it is scalded in near the end.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the chowder a slightly thickened texture.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, rounding out the flavor of the chowder.

The step that matters

Scalding the milk. Milk held at a hard boil can scorch on the bottom of the pot and may curdle. Adding it when the dish is nearly done and heating it gently keeps the broth smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pork, onion, bread, 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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