Skip to main content
Main

Fish Chowder

A chowder made with sliced pork, onion, fish or cod, potatoes, water, sweet milk, flour, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the sliced pork in a kettle until done, then remove it.

Stew

  1. In the kettle, layer the pork fat, chopped onion, fresh fish or cod, and sliced potatoes.

  2. Pour 1 pint of water over the layers and stew for 30 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the sweet milk with 2 tablespoons of flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk mixture and pepper to the kettle, then bring to a boil 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. Onion + potatotop 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  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

Flour
Thickens the sweet milk so the chowder becomes creamy rather than watery.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth.
Fresh white fish or cod
Provides the main flaky protein that cooks into the chowder.
Sliced pork
Renders fat and flavour into the kettle that seasons the stew.
Irish potatoes
Soften during stewing and add body to the chowder.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the milk. Flour clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Mixing it smooth in cold milk first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the chowder thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, fish, potato, milk, 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.

More fish chowder recipes

New England 5Salt 3 See all 159 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes