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Pork Chowder

A hearty pork chowder with sliced potatoes, onions, and crackers, optionally with clams.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Pork Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork and onions

  1. Fry the pork slices until cooked, then drain off all but 1 tablespoon of fat.

  2. Fry the onions in the remaining fat until pale brown.

Assemble and cook

  1. Layer the pork, onions, and potatoes in a saucepan, adding a little pepper to each layer.

  2. Add 1 pint of water, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in 1 pint of rich milk and top with ½ pound of small round crackers.

  4. Cover again and serve when the crackers are soft.

  5. If using clams, add them when the potatoes are almost done and cook for 10 minutes.

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. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat for frying and adds savory, salty flavor to the chowder.
Potatoes
Provide starch and body, thickening the broth as they cook.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth when fried until pale brown.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.
Crackers
Soften on top of the liquid, adding body and thickening the chowder.

The step that matters

Simmering after adding the milk and crackers. Milk can scorch or curdle if it boils hard, so keep the heat gentle and cover the pot so the crackers soften evenly without the milk breaking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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