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 ↓
Clam Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the clams
Boil the clams in water until their shells open, then remove and discard the hard parts.
In the same pot, cook the sliced salt pork until it produces ½ cup of liquid, then remove the pork.
Layer and bake
Layer clams in the pot, followed by soaked biscuits, then more clams, and more soaked biscuits.
Season the final layer of clams with pepper and mace, and add the sliced onions and chopped potatoes if using.
Cover the mixture with pastry and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.
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.
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
-
Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together428 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Clam + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together305 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Clams
- Provide the main seafood flavour and the body of the chowder.
- Salt pork
- Renders fat and savoury flavour into the pot as it cooks.
- Biscuits
- Soak up liquid and thicken the mixture as they absorb moisture.
- Potatoes
- Add starch that thickens the chowder and gives it a hearty body.
The step that matters
Cooking the salt pork to ½ cup of liquid. Rendering the pork slowly draws out its fat and flavour; cooking too hard can scorch the pieces and leave bitter, burnt notes in the chowder.
Swap the onion
The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, pepper, mace, potato, biscuit):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Asparagusfits less well
- Carrotfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against clam, pork, pepper, mace, potato, biscuit. 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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