Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Chowder

A thick soup made with chicken, salt pork, onions, carrots, potatoes, crackers, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe and wash the chicken, then cut it into small pieces.

  2. Fry the salt pork slowly in a pot until dark brown.

  3. Add the carrot and onions, cooking slowly for 15 minutes.

Make the chowder

  1. Combine the chicken, onion, carrot, pork, and 1 quart of hot water in a soup kettle.

  2. Simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Add salt, pepper, potatoes, the remaining water, and flour mixed with a little cold water.

  4. Cook slowly for 40 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Split the crackers and soak them in cold water or milk.

  2. Lay the soaked crackers on top of the chowder.

  3. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. If the chicken is tough, it may require 4 hours of cooking before adding the remaining ingredients.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Chicken
Provides the main meat and savory flavor as it simmers into the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat and deep flavor into the pot when fried until dark brown.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and give the chowder body and substance.
Flour
Thickens the broth as it cooks, giving the chowder a creamier body.
Soft crackers
Soak up liquid and add body when laid on top of the chowder.

The step that matters

Simmering the chicken slowly. Slow, gentle simmering lets connective tissue break down and the meat become tender. Rushing it at a higher heat can leave the chicken tough and the broth cloudy.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

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

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes