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Potato Chowder

A hearty potato chowder made with salt pork, onions, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a frying pan, fry the pork and onion until light brown.

  2. In a kettle, layer the potatoes, then the onions and pork, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and parsley between layers.

  3. Pour the grease from the frying pan over the layers.

  4. Add 1 pint of water, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In a double boiler, scald the milk and mix in the flour and butter until smooth.

  2. When the potatoes are tender, add the milk mixture to the pot and stir carefully to avoid breaking the potatoes.

  3. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 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

Potatoes
Form the body of the chowder and thicken it as their starch breaks down while simmering.
Salt pork
Adds savory, fatty flavor and its rendered grease carries flavor through the chowder.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and creamy body to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the chowder becomes smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the milk and flour mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk mixture. Stir gently once the potatoes are tender. Vigorous stirring breaks the potato pieces apart and can make the chowder cloudy and mushy, and scalding the milk first helps it blend smoothly rather than curdle.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, pork, parsley, 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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