Name: Salt Codfish Chowder
Ingredients: ¼ pound salt pork, cut into bits; 2 medium-sized onions, sliced; 1 pound codfish, washed and cut into bits; 1½ pints potatoes, pared and sliced; dash of pepper; 1 cup water; 1 cup scalded cream; 1 cup milk; 6 crackers, broken into halves

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 ↓

Salt Codfish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

Render the fat from the salt pork in a frying pan.
Brown the onions in the rendered fat.
Wash the codfish and drain it.
Cover the codfish with cold water and heat gently without boiling.
After two hours, add the sliced potatoes and a dash of pepper.
Combine the water with the onions and pork, then strain the mixture over the potatoes.

Finish and serve

When the potatoes are tender, stir in the scalded cream and milk.
Serve the chowder over the broken crackers.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 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

Salt pork: Renders fat that carries flavor into the onions and the whole chowder.
Onions: Browning in the rendered fat adds sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Codfish: Soaking and gentle heating make the salted fish tender and flaky.
Potatoes: Starch from the sliced potatoes thickens the chowder and gives it body.
Cream and milk: Add richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Heat the codfish gently without boiling. Boiling toughens and dries cod proteins, making the fish firm and stringy instead of tender and flaky.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

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

Potato Croquettes255 recipes

Pork Cake107 recipes

Roast Pork82 recipes

Potato Rolls78 recipes

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Salt Codfish Chowder