Skip to main content
Main

Fish Chowder

A hearty fish chowder with white fish, potatoes, pork, claret wine, and buttered crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork and onions

  1. Fry the pork in its own fat until crispy.

  2. Add the onions and cook until browned.

  3. Drain the onions from the fat.

Stew the chowder

  1. In a soup pot, layer the pork, then potatoes, pepper, fish, onions, and more pork.

  2. Pour in the claret and just enough boiling water to cover everything.

  3. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Line a tureen with buttered crackers.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the crackers.

  3. Place the tureen in boiling water until the chowder is done.

  4. Add the parsley and boil for 1 minute.

  5. Pour out the chowder.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Firm white fish
Forms the flaky, substantial body of the chowder as it cooks.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, thickening the broth and adding body.
Fat salt pork
Its rendered fat carries flavor and its crisped pieces add savory richness.
Onion
Browning develops sweetness and deeper savory flavor.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, mellow body to the broth.
Boston crackers
Soak up liquid and thicken the base, giving the chowder body.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 30 minutes. Hard boiling breaks up delicate fish and toughens its proteins, so keep the pot at a gentle simmer for the stew.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, pork, milk, parsley, pepper, lemon. 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 fish chowder recipes

New England 5Salt 3 See all 159 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes