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Fish Chowdek

A fish chowder with cod or haddock, potatoes, salt pork, milk, butter, and crackers, simmered until the broth is thin cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fish Chowdek

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the layers

  1. Fry the salt pork in a deep kettle until browned.

  2. Layer the fish in the kettle.

  3. Layer the potatoes dredged with flour, pepper, and salt in the kettle.

  4. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

  5. Pour hot water over the layers, not quite covering them.

Cook and finish the chowder

  1. Boil until the potatoes are tender.

  2. Heat the milk in another saucepan.

  3. Add the heated milk to the chowder.

  4. Add the butter and soaked crackers to the chowder.

  5. Boil once.

  6. Strain the broth into a soup tureen.

  7. Serve, ensuring the broth is the consistency of a thin cream soup.

  8. Serve the fish and potatoes on a large platter with crackers around.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces as it cooks.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the broth as they soften.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the dish when fried first.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.
Boston crackers
Soak up liquid and thicken the broth, adding body.

The step that matters

Boil once, then stop. Milk can curdle or scorch when it boils hard or for long. A single gentle boil after adding the milk keeps the broth smooth and creamy.

“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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