Skip to main content
Main

Turkey Chowder

A chowder made from turkey bones, ham, oysters, corn, and okra, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and okra work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 161 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Turkey Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cook the turkey bones and bits in water until flavorful.

  2. Strain the broth and return it to the pot.

Finish the chowder

  1. Add the diced ham, oysters, corn, and okra to the broth.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Make balls of dressing and drop them into the chowder 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. Corn + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together161 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover turkey bones and bits
Simmered in water to release flavor into the broth that forms the base of the chowder.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the chowder.
Oysters
Contribute their briny, savory flavor to the chowder.
Okra
Adds body and thickness to the chowder as it cooks.
Dressing
Forms dumplings that cook in the broth and add starch and substance.

The step that matters

Drop the dressing balls in just before serving. Dressing dumplings can turn soggy and fall apart if they sit too long in hot liquid, so they should be added at the last moment.

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, ham, oyster, corn, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Okrathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, ham, oyster, corn, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipes