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Chowder of Fish or Clams

A chowder made with pork, fish or clams, onions, potatoes, and a cream‑flour thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Chowder of Fish or Clams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the pork and render the fat in a pot.

  2. Add sliced onions and brown them.

  3. Remove everything except the liquid.

Add the fish and potatoes

  1. Skin and cut the fish.

  2. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

  3. Peel and slice the potatoes.

  4. Add the potatoes to the pot with enough boiling water to cover.

Cook and thicken

  1. Cook for about 30 minutes until the potatoes and fish are done.

  2. Thicken the chowder with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed in ½ cup of cream.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Pork
Rendered fat provides flavour for the broth.
Onions
Browning them adds sweetness and depth to the broth.
Potatoes
Starch from the potatoes adds body and substance to the chowder.
Fish
Provides the main protein and flavour of the chowder.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the chowder turns creamy.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and cream. Flour must be mixed smoothly into the cream before it goes into the hot chowder, or it will clump. Once added, the chowder should be kept gently warm rather than boiled, since boiling can cause the cream to separate.

Swap the onion

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

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

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