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Clam Chowder

A soup made with salt pork, potatoes, onions, clams, crackers, milk, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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. Fry the salt pork in a deep kettle until crispy.

  2. Remove the pork and set aside.

  3. Add 2 quarts of water to the kettle and bring to a boil.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the sliced potatoes and onions, and cook until nearly done.

  2. Stir in the chopped clams and season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the soaked crackers and 1 cup of milk, stirring gently.

  4. If desired, add butter for extra flavor.

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

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

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

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

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

Potatoes
Provide starchy body and bulk that give the chowder its substance.
Clams
Supply the main seafood flavor and tender texture.
Crackers
Soaked in milk, they thicken the broth slightly and add body.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the kettle for the base.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Once milk is added, the chowder should be kept hot but not boiling hard, since vigorous boiling can cause dairy to curdle and separate.

Swap the onion

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

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

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