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Catfish Chowder

A hearty soup made with catfish, bacon, onions, milk, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Catfish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook the bacon with enough water for the chowder for 2 hours before dinner.

  2. Dip the catfish in hot water to remove the skin, then cut into small pieces.

Cook the chowder

  1. Add the fish to the pot with the bacon and boil until cooked through.

  2. Remove all bones from the fish.

  3. Add the chopped onions, thickening, salt, and pepper to the pot.

  4. Once the onions are cooked, stir in the milk, beaten egg yolks, and butter.

  5. Serve the chowder hot, garnished with parsley if desired.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Catfish + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Forms the main body of the chowder as flaky pieces of fish.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the cooking water.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the chowder, adding richness and body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and egg yolks gently. Egg yolks can curdle or turn grainy if they boil or get too hot too quickly. Adding them once the onions are cooked, and keeping the chowder below a boil, lets them thicken smoothly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (catfish, onion, pepper, milk, egg, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against catfish, onion, pepper, milk, egg, 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.

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