Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

A hearty soup of celery, carrots, turnip, potatoes, ham or bacon, tomatoes, clams, and herbs in a rich stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine celery, carrots, turnip, and potatoes in a soup kettle.

  2. Cover with boiling salted water and cook slowly for 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Add the rich soup stock.

  4. Strain in the stewed tomatoes.

Make the flavouring

  1. Fry the ham or bacon until crisp.

  2. Add the cooked ham or bacon to the stock.

  3. In the bacon fat, fry the onion until soft.

  4. Stir in the flour until smooth and brown.

  5. Add this mixture to the stock.

  6. Season the chowder with salt, pepper, ginger, parsley, thyme, and marjoram.

Add the clams and serve

  1. Heat the chopped clams in their own liquor with butter.

  2. Add the clams to the stock just before serving.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Potatoes
Soften during slow cooking and thicken the chowder body as they break down.
Flour
Browns and thickens the stock, giving the chowder body and a toasted flavour.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour and tender texture when added at the end.
Ham or bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat and flavour that carries through the stock.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body that balance the rich stock and cream-free broth.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base when softened in bacon fat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour until smooth and brown. Flour lumps form if added without being smoothed into the fat first, and browning too far turns it bitter. Stirring steadily until smooth and lightly coloured gives even thickening and a toasted flavour.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, turnip, potato, ham, onion, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, turnip, potato, ham, onion, flour. 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 clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes