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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, pork, onions, potatoes, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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

Prepare the clams

  1. Put 50 clams in a pot with their liquor and ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil for about 3 minutes, then strain and reserve the liquor.

Make the chowder base

  1. In a separate pan, fry the chopped onion and diced pork in 2 oz of butter until light in color.

  2. Stir in 3 oz of flour and cook thoroughly.

  3. Add the reserved clam liquor, 4 cups of stock or milk, and 4 cups of cream to the mixture.

  4. Season with ¼ teaspoon of mace, ¼ teaspoon of thyme, and salt to taste.

  5. Add 8 oz of diced potatoes and cook until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the diced clams and 4 oz of broken crackers.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

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 texture of the chowder.
Flour
Thickens the butter and fat mixture, giving the chowder body as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the onion and pork flavor and adds richness at the start of the base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the broth.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, becoming tender as they cook in the broth.
Crackers
Thicken the chowder slightly and add a toasted, savory flavor when stirred in.

The step that matters

Cook the flour into the butter fat. Cooking the flour thoroughly in the fat removes its raw taste and lets it thicken the liquid smoothly rather than leaving lumps or a pasty flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, pork, butter, flour, milk, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, pork, butter, flour, milk, cream. 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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