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Lobster Chowder

A creamy soup made with lobster, crackers, pork, fish, onions, potatoes, and biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Lobster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped lobster and pounded crackers with boiling milk.

  2. Add butter, pepper, and salt, then bring to a boil.

Layer and stew

  1. In a separate pot, fry thin slices of pork until dry.

  2. Layer fish, onions, and potatoes in the pot with the pork, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  3. Place soaked hard biscuits around the sides and on top of the layers.

  4. Add enough water to cover the ingredients, then stew for over 30 minutes until the potatoes are done.

  5. Five minutes before serving, add milk or sweet cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Milk + potatotop 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

Lobster
Provides the main flavour and body of the chowder.
Pounded crackers
Thicken the milk base and help give the chowder body.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, softening as the chowder stews.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother mouthfeel.
Milk or sweet cream
Adds creaminess and mellows the flavour near the end.

The step that matters

Stewing until the potatoes are done. Stewing gently until the potatoes are fully tender lets their starch thicken the broth and blend the flavours. Stopping early leaves firm, raw-tasting potatoes, while a hard boil can break up the layers and scorch the milk.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lobster, milk, butter, pepper, pork, fish, potato. 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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