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Vegetable Chowder

A hearty vegetable chowder made with potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and skim milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vegetable Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut potatoes and carrots into small pieces.

  2. Add water to cover and cook for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Brown the chopped onion in the fat.

  2. Add the flour and tomatoes to the onions.

  3. When thickened, add to the vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk and combine with the vegetables just 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Flour
Thickens the tomato and onion mixture into a body-rich sauce.
Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the chowder a hearty texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished chowder.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, balancing the richness of the milk.

The step that matters

Heat the milk and combine just before serving. Milk can curdle or separate when boiled or held at high heat with acidic tomatoes. Warming it gently and adding it at the end keeps the chowder smooth and creamy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pork, carrot, onion, flour, milk):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, carrot, onion, 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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