Name: Corn Chowder
Ingredients: 1 cup salt pork, cubed; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup parboiled potatoes, cubed; 2 tablespoons flour; ½ cup bread crumbs; ½ cup chopped onion; Salt, to taste; Cayenne pepper, to taste; 2 cups water

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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salt pork in a frying pan for 5 to 6 minutes.
Add the onion and cook until it turns yellow.
Add the potatoes, corn, and water, and cook for 20 minutes.
In a separate pan, melt the butter and whisk in the flour to thicken the milk.
Combine the two mixtures, then add the bread crumbs and season with salt and cayenne.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, potato, flour, bread, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.