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Corn Chowder

A hearty soup made with corn, potatoes, onions, pork fat, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the pork into small pieces and render the fat in a pan.

  2. Remove scraps, add onion, and cook for five minutes without browning, stirring constantly.

  3. Strain the fat into a stew pan.

  4. Parboil the potatoes in boiling salted water for five minutes, then drain.

  5. Add the potatoes to the fat, then add two cups of boiling water and cook until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the corn and scalded milk, bring to a boil, and season with salt and pepper. Be careful not to scorch the milk when adding it to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the butter.

  3. Split the crackers and soak them in just enough milk to moisten.

  4. Remove the crackers with a skimmer, pour the chowder into a hot tureen, and place the crackers on top.

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. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 carries the flavour of the whole chowder.
Potatoes
Soften into tender pieces that thicken the chowder and give body.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the chowder its richness.
Corn
Adds sweetness and the main vegetable flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, rich finish stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Scalding and adding the milk. Milk scorches easily on direct heat and can taste burnt or form a skin on the bottom of the pot. Keep the heat moderate and stir so the milk warms gently without sticking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, potato, pork, pepper, butter. 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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