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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, potatoes, onions, salt pork, milk, crackers, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the clams.

  2. Fry the salt pork in a pot until brown.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the sliced onion and potatoes to the pot and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the grated crackers, salt, pepper, and chopped red pepper.

  3. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Once boiling, add the clams and cook for a few more minutes.

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. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Clam + porktop 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender texture in the chowder.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften into the broth, thickening it slightly.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that carries the other ingredients.
Salt pork
Renders fat that browns and adds savory depth to the base.
Grated crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the chowder while adding a toasty note.

The step that matters

Once boiling, add the clams and cook for a few more minutes.. Clams cook quickly, and overcooking makes them tough and rubbery. Adding them once the milk is boiling and then cooking only briefly keeps them tender. Milk can also scorch or curdle if it is held at a hard boil for too long, so watch the heat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, pork, milk, 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.

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