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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup of salt pork, potatoes, onions, fish, tomatoes, milk, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and ketchup share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut salt pork into dice and fry until crisp.

  2. Transfer the pork to a chowder kettle.

Build the chowder

  1. Pare and cut potatoes in half, then add to the kettle with part of the chopped onion.

  2. Layer the fish pieces over the potatoes and sprinkle with the remaining onion.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add enough water to cover the fish.

  4. Pour in the canned tomatoes, cover, and cook until the potatoes are tender.

  5. Add the milk and let it scald again.

  6. Season with tomato ketchup and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

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. Haddock + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Salt pork
Renders fat that flavours the base and gives crisp, savoury bits.
Potatoes
Starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the chowder body.
Cod or haddock
Flaky white fish that becomes tender as it cooks in the broth.
Canned tomatoes
Adds acidity and liquid that gives the chowder its tangy flavour.
Milk
Makes the broth creamy and rich while adding mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard after being added to acidic tomatoes. Letting it only scald keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, haddock, pepper, tomato, milk, ketchup. 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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