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Soup

Clam Chowder

A soup made with bacon, clams, corn, potatoes, onion, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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. Fry the diced bacon in a kettle until crisp.

  2. Add boiling water to the kettle for the desired amount of soup.

Simmer and season

  1. Stir in the chopped clams with their liquor, corn, diced potatoes, and sliced onion.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Renders fat that carries flavour into the soup and adds savoury, browned notes.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour, and their liquor adds savoury depth to the broth.
Potatoes
Soften during slow boiling and thicken the soup slightly as their starch releases.
Corn
Adds natural sweetness and tender texture to the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that mellows and blends into the broth during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the clams tender instead of rubbery, while letting the potatoes soften fully and the broth develop flavour. A hard boil toughens clam meat and can break down the potatoes too quickly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, corn, potato, 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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