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Corn Chowder

A hearty soup made with salt pork, potatoes, onions, corn, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dice the salt pork.

  2. Place the diced salt pork in a stewpan over low heat.

  3. Cook until crisp and brown.

  4. Pare and slice the potatoes.

  5. Pare and slice the onions.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the potatoes and onions to the stewpan.

  2. Pour in 1 pint of boiling water.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Add hot milk and corn.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Bring to a boil once more.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot.

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 + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Renders fat for browning and adds a savory, smoky flavor to the base.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the chowder and giving it body.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Corn
Adds sweetness and a tender texture to the finished chowder.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, rounding out the flavor of the chowder.

The step that matters

Add hot milk and bring back to a boil. Milk can curdle or scorch if it is boiled too hard or too long, so it should be added hot and heated gently.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, corn, 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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