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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with fish, salt pork, onions, potatoes, Boston crackers, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the base

  1. In a kettle, fry the salt pork slowly until all the fat is rendered, then remove the pork scraps.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer one-third of the fish in the kettle, followed by a layer of potatoes, chopped onions, salt, pepper, and a light dredging of flour.

  2. Repeat the layering until all ingredients are used, then cover with cold water and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the soaked Boston crackers and sweet milk, then boil for an additional 5 minutes before serving.

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

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

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

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder and flakes into the broth as it cooks.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat adds savory richness to the dish.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and thicken the broth slightly with their starch.
Boston crackers
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder as they break down.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Once milk is added, it should only be heated gently, since a hard boil can cause it to curdle and separate. Here it is boiled for 5 minutes, so keeping the heat moderate helps the broth stay smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, pepper, flour, 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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