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Oyster Chowder

A creamy oyster chowder with potatoes, onions, and sea biscuits.

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 ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oysters and remove any shell particles by running them through your fingers.

  2. Strain the oyster liquor through a fine wire sieve.

  3. Thinly slice the potatoes and onion, then boil them gently in the oyster liquor until tender.

Make the chowder

  1. Wet the flour with a little milk and stir it into the scalding milk heated in a double boiler, adding the butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook for about a minute, then add the oysters and boil for two minutes.

  3. Combine the potatoes, onion, and their cooking liquor with the milk mixture.

Serve

  1. Place the crackers or sea biscuits in a tureen, pour the chowder over them, and serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Biscuit + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture, cooked briefly so they stay tender.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thickens the chowder and make it hearty.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that carries the other ingredients.
Pilot or sea biscuits
Soak up the broth and give the chowder a thick, bready body when served.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied base.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the scalding milk. Flour lumps if added dry or without being wetted first, and lumps won't dissolve evenly. Wetting it with a little milk into a smooth paste lets the starch disperse and thicken the milk evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, potato, milk, biscuit, flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, potato, milk, biscuit, flour, butter, pepper. 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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