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Fish Chowder

A soup of fish, potatoes, milk, butter, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Layer fish in a kettle, sprinkling with salt and pepper.

  2. Add a layer of sliced potatoes, then another layer of fish, seasoning again.

Cook

  1. Cover with cold water and cook until potatoes are done, about 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of butter.

  3. Add flour to thicken as desired.

Serve

  1. Serve in soup dishes.

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

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and contributes its flavor to the broth.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, giving the chowder a heartier texture as they cook.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so it becomes a more substantial, spoonable chowder.

The step that matters

Adding flour to thicken. Flour must be stirred in so it disperses without lumps; starch thickens best when the liquid is hot enough to gelatinize it, so add it gradually while the chowder is simmering.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, milk, butter, flour. 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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