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Oyster Chowder

A creamy oyster chowder made with oysters, salt pork, potatoes, onion, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salt pork into cubes and fry until well cooked.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the potatoes, onion, milk, and oyster liquor to the pot.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

  3. Thicken the chowder with the rolled crackers.

  4. Add the oysters, heat through, and serve.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and tender bite of the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and browns the cubes for savory depth.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and add body and starch to the broth.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the chowder its smooth richness.
Rolled crackers
Starch that thickens the liquid as the chowder simmers.

The step that matters

Add the oysters, heat through, and serve.. Oysters toughen and shrink when overcooked, so they should be added near the end and heated only until warmed through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, pork, potato, butter, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pork, potato, butter, egg, milk. 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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