Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

A hearty soup made with clams, beef stock, pickled pork, onions, celery, tomatoes, potatoes, and hot milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Boil the clams in beef stock for 10 minutes, then strain.

  2. Remove the clams from their shells and chop them.

  3. Return the chopped clams to the stock.

Build the chowder

  1. Dice the pickled pork and fry until light brown.

  2. Add the sliced onions and diced celery to the pork, and simmer for a few minutes.

  3. Add this mixture to the stock along with the can of tomatoes and sliced potatoes.

  4. Simmer all ingredients for about 30 minutes.

  5. Thicken the chowder, then add hot milk and serve.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and chewy texture of the chowder.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savory fat and browned flavor when fried at the start.
Potatoes
Break down partly during simmering to give body and starch to the chowder.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the pork fat.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to finish the chowder.

The step that matters

Thicken the chowder, then add hot milk. Adding cold or boiling milk can curdle or split it. Adding hot milk to a gently simmering base keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, beef, pork, onion, tomato, potato, milk):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, beef, pork, onion, tomato, potato, milk. 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.

More clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes