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Fish Chowder

A stew of cod, potatoes, salt pork, and crackers, simmered with flour and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sliced potatoes in a basin of cold water.

  2. Layer the bottom of a stew kettle with the salt pork.

Layer and season

  1. Add a layer of fish slices, followed by a layer of saltine crackers, then some potatoes.

  2. Repeat the layers until the kettle is full.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add 1 quart of water.

Simmer

  1. Mix the flour in ½ cup of water and pour it in after the stew begins to simmer.

  2. Cover tightly and simmer for 3 hours.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Hold their shape and give the chowder body as they cook and soften.
Cod
Provides the main protein, flaking into tender pieces during the long simmer.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the kettle, adding savoury richness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a looser, creamier broth when stirred in and simmered.

The step that matters

Adding the flour slurry. Flour must be fully mixed into cold water first and added once the stew is simmering; poured in dry or into a boiling liquid, it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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