Name: Clam Chowder
Ingredients: ¼ pound salt pork, cut into small pieces; 4 large onions, sliced; 6 potatoes, diced; 1 quart boiling water; 1 quart clams, drained; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 quart milk; 1 tablespoon butter

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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder

Fry the salt pork in a pot until crisp and brown, being careful not to burn it.
Add the sliced onions and diced potatoes to the pot.
Pour in the boiling water and add the clams, salt, and pepper.
Let the mixture cook for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

Before serving, stir in the milk and butter.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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

Salt pork: Renders fat that browns the pot and adds savory flavor to the base.
Onions: Soften during cooking and add sweetness and body to the broth.
Potatoes: Release starch as they cook, helping thicken the chowder and give it body.
Clams: Add the main seafood flavor and briny taste to the broth.
Milk: Adds creaminess and mellows the broth's flavor when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Frying the salt pork. Pork that burns turns bitter and can taint the whole pot, so it should be browned gently until crisp.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original
Tomatofits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well

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