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Fish Chowder

A soup made with fresh fish, potatoes, crackers, milk, and optional onion and pork or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Layer

  1. In a pot, layer some fish.

  2. Add a layer of crackers and sliced potatoes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  5. Finish with a layer of fish on top.

Cook

  1. Cover the layers with water.

  2. Add onion and fried pork or butter if desired.

  3. Boil until the potatoes are tender.

  4. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil again.

Serve

  1. When serving, remove all large bones.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces as it cooks.
Potatoes
Soften during boiling and thicken the broth with their starch.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the chowder as they soften.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Boil until the potatoes are tender. Potatoes must cook fully before the milk goes in, since starch softens slowly and undercooked potato stays firm and grainy in the broth.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, potato, pepper, pork, milk):

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

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

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