Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the clams

  1. Wash the clams thoroughly and place them in a pot with ½ pint of water.

  2. Cook until the shells open, then remove the clams from the shells and chop finely, saving the clam water.

Cook the base

  1. Fry the salt pork gently until browned, then remove the scraps.

  2. In the same pan, fry the chopped onions until delicate.

  3. Add 1 quart of hot water, clams, clam water, and pork scraps to the chowder kettle.

  4. Once boiling, add the potatoes and cook until tender.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the chowder with 1 cup of powdered crackers and stir in 1 quart of fresh milk.

  2. If too rich, add more water and season with black pepper.

  3. For extra flavor, add sliced tomatoes before serving.

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 + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the chowder.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it browns and renders into the base.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking to give the chowder body and bulk.
Powdered crackers
Thicken the chowder as they absorb liquid and swell.
Fresh milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the broth.

The step that matters

Thicken with crackers after the potatoes are tender. Powdered crackers swell and thicken the liquid quickly, so adding them too early or in large amounts can make the chowder gluey. Stirring them in once the potatoes are cooked lets you control the thickness before the milk goes in.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, onion, potato, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

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

More clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes