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St. Lawrence River Fish Chowder

A chowder made with salt pork, potatoes, fish, pilot crackers, onions, pepper, lemon, sea salt, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

St. Lawrence River Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Layer and season

  1. In a deep kettle, layer salt pork, sliced potatoes, fish, pilot crackers, and sliced onions.

  2. Season with red and black pepper, lemon juice, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour in enough milk to cover the layers.

Cook

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and cook very slowly.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Salt pork
Renders fat that flavours the milk and the layers of potato and fish.
Sliced potatoes
Absorb the milk and soften, thickening the chowder body.
Fish
Provides the main protein and flavour, cooking gently in the milk.
Pilot crackers
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that cooks the layers and gives body.
Sliced onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften slowly in the liquid.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly. Milk scorches and can curdle or boil over if heated quickly. A gentle, low heat lets the potatoes and fish cook through while the milk stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, fish, onion, pepper, milk, butter. 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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