Name: Clam Chowder
Ingredients: 50 clams; ½ pound soda biscuits (or cracker crumbs); ¼ pound butter; ½ cup milk or water; pepper to taste

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dish

Butter a deep baking dish.
Layer grated bread crumbs or cracker crumbs in the dish.
Sprinkle with pepper and bits of butter.

Layer and bake

Add a double layer of clams and season with more pepper and butter.
Repeat with another layer of crumbs, then clams, finishing with bread crumbs or soaked cracker.
Pour in the milk or water.
Cover with a plate and bake for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together840 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Clam + biscuittop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together48 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Clams: Provide the main seafood flavor and the bulk of the dish.
Soda biscuits: Form the crumb layers that soak up liquid and give the dish body.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and promotes gentle browning.
Milk: Supplies moisture and creaminess as the layers bake together.

“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.