Skip to main content
Main

Oyster Chowder

A chowder made with oysters, clams, salt pork, onions, flour, butter, milk, and toasted crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Oyster Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the shoulders and hard parts of the clams finely.

  2. Save all the liquor from the clams and oysters.

  3. In a kettle, fry the salt pork until brown. Remove the salt pork from the kettle.

  4. Brown the chopped onions in the same kettle. Remove the onions from the kettle.

Build and cook the chowder

  1. Layer clams, oysters, salt pork, onions, salt, and pepper in the kettle, repeating the layers.

  2. Pour the saved liquor over the layers.

  3. Add enough water to make a quart.

  4. Mix the flour and butter together.

  5. Warm the milk.

  6. Add the warm milk to the mixture.

  7. Bring the chowder to a boil.

  8. Pour in the milk and butter mixture.

Serve

  1. Place the toasted and buttered crackers in a tureen.

  2. Pour the chowder over the crackers.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 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

Oysters
Provide the main seafood flavor and tender body to the chowder.
Clams
Add savory depth and briny flavor, with chopped shells and hard parts giving body.
Salt pork
Renders fat and salty, savory flavor that seasons the layers and the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma when browned in the rendered pork fat.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture so the chowder becomes creamy.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the chowder its richness and body.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and butter mixture. Flour thickens only when it is cooked in liquid. Pour the flour-butter mixture in gradually and keep the chowder hot but not boiling hard, so it thickens smoothly without lumps and the milk does not scorch or curdle.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, clam, pork, pepper, flour, butter, 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipes