Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓
Clam Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the clams
Wash the clams until clean and place them in a kettle with 1 quart of cold water.
Cook the clams until they open.
Remove the kettle from heat.
Skim out the clams from the liquid.
Pour the liquid into a dish to let it settle.
Once the liquid has cooled, cut off the heads of the clams with scissors.
Make the chowder
In the same kettle, fry the onion in the salt pork until brown.
Remove the onion and pork from the kettle.
Add the potatoes and clam liquor to the kettle, being careful not to disturb the settled particles.
When the potatoes are soft, add the clams, seasonings, and hot milk, adding more water if desired.
Melt the butter.
Stir in the flour.
Add the butter and flour mixture to the chowder or to the hot milk before adding it.
Serve
Place crackers in a tureen and pour the chowder over them.
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.
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Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + porktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Clam + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together305 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Clams
- Provide the main flavor and texture of the chowder.
- Potatoes
- Add body and starch that soften into the chowder, thickening it slightly.
- Salt pork
- Renders fat that carries flavor from the browned onion through the chowder.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor of the chowder.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter mixture, giving the chowder a creamier body.
- Milk
- Makes the chowder creamy and mellows the briny clam liquor.
The step that matters
Add the butter and flour mixture to the milk before adding it to the chowder. Flour clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Cooking it with butter first and blending it into the milk lets starch disperse evenly, so the chowder thickens smoothly instead of becoming lumpy.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, potato, pork, pepper, butter, flour, milk):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against clam, potato, pork, pepper, butter, 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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