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Clam Chowder

A creamy soup made with clams, salt pork, onions, potatoes, and milk, thickened with powdered crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the clams

  1. Wash clams thoroughly and place them in a pot with ½ pint of water. Cook until shells open.

  2. Remove clams from shells and chop them finely, saving the clam water.

Make the base

  1. In a frying pan, gently fry the salt pork until browned. Remove the pork scraps.

  2. Add the chopped onions to the pan and fry delicately.

Make the chowder

  1. In a clean chowder kettle, add 1 quart of hot water, clams, clam water, and pork scraps. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the potatoes and cook until tender.

  3. Just before serving, thicken the chowder with 1 cup of powdered crackers.

  4. Stir in 1 quart of fresh milk.

  5. If the chowder is too rich, add more water and season with black pepper.

  6. If desired, add sliced tomatoes.

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

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Clams (quahogs)
Provide the main flavor and texture of the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and adds savory browning to the base.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften during cooking, giving the chowder substance.
Powdered crackers
Thicken the chowder as their starch absorbs liquid.
Fresh milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Thickening with powdered crackers. Crackers must be added just before serving and stirred in well. Their starch thickens the liquid as it heats, and if they sit too long or are added to a boiling pot they can turn gluey or clump.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, onion, potato, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

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