Name: Clam Chowder, Coney Island Style
Ingredients: 1 pound pickled pork; 6 onions, sliced; 1 can tomatoes; sliced potatoes; clams; crackers

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, Coney Island Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

Mince the pickled pork and fry until light brown.
Add the sliced onions and canned tomatoes to the pork.

Layer and bake

Line a baking dish with sliced potatoes.
Layer clams, the pork mixture, and crackers in the dish until full.
Bake for 1 hour and serve piping hot.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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: Fried until light brown, it adds salty, savory fat and flavor to the dish.
Onions: Sliced and cooked with the pork, they add sweetness and savory depth.
Tomatoes: Canned tomatoes add acidity and moisture that blends into the layers.
Potatoes: Sliced potatoes form the base layer, providing starch that holds the dish together.
Clams: Layered in the dish, they supply the main seafood flavor.
Crackers: Crackers soak up liquid and add body to the layered filling.