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Clam Chowder

A soup made with potatoes, onion, tomatoes, clams, bacon, and seasonings, served hot with crackers or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder

  1. In a pot, stew the potatoes, onion, and tomatoes until well done.

  2. Fifteen minutes before serving, season with Spanish red pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the fried bacon pieces and stir for five minutes.

  4. Then, add the clams and a liberal sprinkle of parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with salt crackers or toast.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 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

Potatoes
Break down into starch that thickens the broth and gives the chowder body.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that carries flavor through the whole pot.
Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and a tender, briny bite.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the richness of the bacon and clams.

The step that matters

Adding the clams. Clams toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked. Add them at the end, once the pot is hot, and stop cooking as soon as they open.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, tomato, pepper, clam, parsley. 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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