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Soup

Clam Chowder

A soup made with corned pork, tomato, potato, clams, onion, and water or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pork into small dice and fry until light brown.

  2. Chop the onion and cut the potato into small dice.

  3. Chop the clams and slice the tomato (or use the same amount of canned tomatoes).

Make the chowder

  1. Add the vegetables and clams with their liquor to the browned pork.

  2. Pour in the water (or part water and part white stock for extra flavor).

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. Tomato + potatotop 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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

Corned pork
Its rendered fat and browned surface give the base a savory, rich flavor.
Clams
Their meat and liquor add a briny, sea-like flavor to the broth.
Potato
Its starch softens and slightly thickens the broth while the cubes hold their shape.
Tomato
Adds acidity and a touch of sweetness that balances the savory pork and clams.
Onion
Softens and turns sweet as it cooks, adding aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the pork until light brown. Browning the pork triggers Maillard reactions that create savory, roasted flavors, which form the base of the chowder. Pale pork gives a flat taste, while overly dark pork can turn bitter.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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