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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with haddock, salt pork, onions, potatoes, biscuits, and milk.

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

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the haddock and cut it into 3-inch square pieces.

  2. Fry the salt pork in a large pot until brown.

  3. Add the sliced onions and fry until brown.

  4. Remove the pot from the heat.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer the fish on top of the pork and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  3. Add a layer of sliced potatoes.

  4. Continue layering fish and potatoes until all are used.

  5. Cover with water.

  6. Boil for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the crushed biscuits or crackers.

  2. Pour in the milk.

  3. Let it scald well.

  4. Serve.

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. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haddock
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces as it cooks.
Salt pork
Renders fat and browned flavor into the pot that seasons the whole chowder.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the broth slightly as they cook.
Biscuits or crackers
Thicken the broth as they absorb liquid and break down.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Let it scald well. Milk curdles and can separate if it boils hard, so it should be heated gently until steaming rather than allowed to boil vigorously.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, pork, pepper, potato, biscuit, 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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