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Salmon Chowder

A hearty soup made with canned salmon, bacon, macaroni, potatoes, onions, parsley, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Salmon Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bacon

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy, then set aside to cool.

Build the chowder

  1. In the bacon grease, add the salmon.

  2. Layer the macaroni, parsley, onions, potatoes, and chopped bacon over the salmon.

  3. Cover the layers with water and boil slowly for about 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, pour the juice from the salmon can into the kettle after lifting the chowder.

  2. Add 1 cup of water and thicken it like a cream gravy.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together952 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein and flavor base of the chowder.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and help thicken the chowder body.
Egg
Stirred in off the heat to enrich and lightly thicken the sauce.
Macaroni
Adds starchy body and bulk to the chowder.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savory flavor to the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg off the heat. Eggs set when exposed to high heat and can curdle or scramble if added to boiling liquid. Removing the pot from the heat first lets the egg thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, parsley, potato, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, parsley, potato, egg. 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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