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Oyster Chowder

A creamy soup of oysters, potatoes, salt pork, onions, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the oysters, pick over, drain, and boil the oyster liquor; skim off any impurities.

Make the chowder

  1. Fry the salt pork pieces until crispy, then add the chopped onion and fry until yellow.

  2. Remove the pork and onion scraps, then add the parboiled potatoes to the pot.

  3. Cover the potatoes with boiling water and cook until tender.

  4. Add the oyster liquor and oysters, cooking until the edges of the oysters curl.

  5. Mix the flour with a little cold water to make a thin paste.

  6. Add the paste to the chowder and cook for five minutes.

  7. Stir in the hot milk, butter, and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Add a few oyster crackers and 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. 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture; they firm and curl when cooked through.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that make the chowder hearty and thicken it slightly.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, creamy consistency when cooked.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavour through the pot and adds savoury depth.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens in the rendered fat.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour must be mixed smooth with cold water first and then cooked for several minutes; added dry or lumpy, it forms clumps and leaves a raw floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, 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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