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Corn Chowder

A hearty soup made with corn, potatoes, salt pork, milk, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook salt pork in a frying pan for five minutes.

  2. Add onion and cook until yellow.

  3. Parboil potatoes for five minutes.

  4. Add potatoes to the onion along with corn and water.

  5. Cook for twenty minutes.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken milk with butter and flour cooked together.

  2. Combine the mixtures.

  3. Add cracker crumbs.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. 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. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the chowder its body.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the chowder a smooth body.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and add starch that adds body to the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor into the onion and the rest of the chowder.
Cracker crumbs
Add starch that helps thicken the chowder further.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with the butter before it is added, so the starch swells and thickens smoothly. Raw flour stirred into hot milk tends to form lumps and leave a floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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