Name: Clam Chowder
Ingredients: fat pork (salted); clams; Irish potatoes; pepper; water; crackers

Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the bottom of an iron pot with pieces of salted fat pork and fry until the grease is rendered.
Layer clams and sliced Irish potatoes in the pot until the desired amount is reached.
Season with pepper and add enough water to moisten.
Cover the pot and cook over a hot fire for thirty minutes.
Place crackers in a dish and pour the hot chowder over them.

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.

Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together80 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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