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Clam Chowder

A hearty soup made with salt pork, potatoes, clams, crackers, butter, milk or cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Fry the salt pork until rich brown and cut into small pieces.

  2. Place the grease from the pork in a stew pan with some of the pork pieces.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer thinly sliced potatoes, clams, and crackers soaked in milk, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  2. Season each layer with pepper, coarse sea salt, bits of pork, and a little butter.

  3. Add the liquid from the clams and a small quantity of water.

  4. Cover tightly and cook slowly until the potatoes are tender.

  5. Just before serving, stir in 1 pint of milk or 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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  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

Salt pork
Renders fat for cooking and adds savory, browned flavor.
Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the chowder as they cook tender.
Clams
Supply the main seafood flavor and briny taste to the dish.
Crackers
Soaked in milk, they thicken the broth and add body.
Milk or cream
Added at the end to enrich the chowder with creamy richness.

The step that matters

Cook slowly under a tight cover. Slow, covered cooking keeps the potatoes tender without breaking them apart and lets flavors blend. Rapid boiling can toughen clams and make the broth cloudy or scorched, so keep heat gentle.

“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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