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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup of clams, pork, onions, milk, crackers, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate and clean the clams, chopping the hard part very fine.

Make the chowder

  1. Fry the pork in an iron kettle until browned.

  2. Add sliced onions and fry until light brown.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of hot water.

  4. Add the chopped necks of the clams, salt, and pepper.

  5. Boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  6. Add the remaining clams and diced or thinly sliced potatoes.

  7. Cook until the potatoes are done.

  8. Stir in the milk with the soaked crackers. Boil once.

  9. Serve.

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

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

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Milk + potatotop 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

Clams
Provide the main flavor and texture of the chowder, with chopped necks cooked into the broth.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat as a cooking base and adds savory, browned flavor to the chowder.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet when fried, adding depth to the broth.
Potatoes
Cook until tender and add body and starch to the chowder.
Milk crackers
Soaked crackers thicken the chowder and add body to the milk.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk with the soaked crackers. Once milk is added, it can scorch or curdle if the chowder boils hard, so it is only brought up to a single boil.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, pork, milk, pepper, potato. 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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