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Fish Chowder

A soup made with fish, bacon, onions, celery, potatoes, milk, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 the fish

  1. Boil fish in 3 pints of water.

  2. Remove skin and bones.

  3. Cut the fish into small pieces while hot.

Make the chowder

  1. Slice the bacon or pork and fry it with onion, being careful not to color it.

  2. Add sliced potatoes, chopped celery, and stock.

  3. Boil until potatoes are soft.

  4. Add fish, corn starch, and milk.

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

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

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces in the broth.
Potatoes
Add body and soft texture, and their starch slightly thickens the broth as they cook.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rounder, richer mouthfeel to the broth.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid when heated, giving the chowder a smoother body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the fat.
Bacon or salt pork
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the base of the chowder.

The step that matters

Fry the bacon or pork with onion without coloring. Browning turns the fat and onion darker and more bitter, which clashes with the delicate, creamy flavour of a white chowder. Gentle frying softens the onion and renders the fat while keeping the base pale.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Cuminfits about as well

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