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Fish Chowder

A creamy fish chowder with cod or haddock, salt pork, onions, potatoes, milk, butter, flour, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Fry the salt pork with the chopped onion until brown.

  2. In a kettle, combine the fried pork and onion with the fish.

  3. Cover with boiling water and add a little salt. Cook until the fish is tender.

Finish the chowder

  1. Cook the sliced potatoes until tender, then add them to the chowder.

  2. Stir in the rich milk.

  3. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour.

  4. Gradually add 1 cup of the hot liquid to the butter and flour mixture to make a sauce.

  5. Add the sauce to the chowder and season with pepper and salt to taste.

  6. Top with a few crackers 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 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

Salt pork
Renders fat and browned bits that flavour the broth.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the sauce added to the chowder.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the chowder broth.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that help thicken the chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the sauce to the chowder. Adding the roux mixture gradually with hot liquid keeps it smooth. Pouring it in all at once or into cold liquid can cause lumps, because flour needs heat and stirring to disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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