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Clam Chowder

A soup of clams, potatoes, bread, and pickled pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Prepare the base

  1. In a pan, fry the diced pickled pork and chopped onions in butter until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Add the flour and brown well, then set aside on the back of the stove.

Make the chowder

  1. In a separate pot, bring the clams in their liquor to a boil for 3 minutes, then strain and return the liquor to the heat.

  2. Add the fried pork and onions, milk, cream, diced potatoes, and salt to the clam liquor.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the chopped clams, toasted bread, and thyme.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled pork
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavours the broth as it renders in the pan.
Flour
Browned with the fat, it thickens the chowder base and gives it body.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavour, and their liquor adds savoury depth to the broth.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the chowder its smooth, mild body.
Potatoes
Add starch and soft texture that make the chowder more substantial.
Toasted bread
Soaks up broth and adds a toasty texture and aroma when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour must be cooked in the fat until well browned so it loses its raw starchy taste and thickens smoothly. Adding it too pale or leaving it to clump can leave the chowder tasting raw or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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