Skip to main content
Main

Boston Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with fish, salt pork, onions, potatoes, crackers, and water.

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

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 ↓

Boston Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fish into slices.

Layer and cook

  1. Place the pork slices in the bottom of an iron kettle.

  2. When the pork is partly rendered, layer the fish on top.

  3. Add a layer of sliced onions and then a layer of sliced potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  4. Add hard crackers around the sides and top of the layers.

  5. Pour in cold water to nearly cover the ingredients.

  6. Bring to a boil and cook for 45 minutes, being careful not to overcook the fish.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat that flavours the broth and the layers above it.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the chowder body.
Hard crackers
Absorb liquid and soften, thickening the broth and adding body.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma as they cook into the broth.
Fish
Provides the main flaky protein that cooks gently in the broth.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and cook for 45 minutes, being careful not to overcook the fish. Fish proteins toughen and dry out when cooked too long or too hard. Holding the cooking time and keeping the fish intact keeps the flesh tender and flaky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, potato, pepper, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, pepper, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes