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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup of fish, potatoes, onions, and salt pork, finished with crackers and milk.

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

Prepare

  1. Slice the salt pork thin and fry in a kettle until the fat is rendered.

  2. Layer the potatoes, onions, and fish alternately in the kettle.

Cook and finish

  1. Cover with water and let it boil slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Just before serving, split open the crackers and add them along with the milk.

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. 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. 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 kettle and the broth.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the chowder body.
Fish
Main protein that flakes into the chowder as it cooks gently.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the chowder just before serving.

The step that matters

Boiling slowly for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Fish is delicate and can turn tough or fall apart if overcooked, while potatoes need enough time to become tender. A gentle simmer cooks everything evenly without breaking the fish too much.

Swap the onion

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

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

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