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Fish Chowder

A hearty stew of sliced cod, potatoes, salt pork, crackers, and seasonings simmered in water.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sliced potatoes in a basin of cold water.

  2. Layer the bottom of a stew kettle with slices of fat salt pork.

  3. Add 2 or 3 slices of fish on top of the pork.

  4. Add a layer of split crackers, followed by a layer of potatoes, and repeat until the kettle is full.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  6. Pour in 1 quart of water.

Stew

  1. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ½ cup of water and add it after the stew begins to simmer.

  2. Cover tightly and stew for 3 hours.

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that softens during stewing and thickens the broth as it breaks down.
Fresh cod
Provides the flaky fish that cooks gently in the simmering broth.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat into the kettle, adding richness and savory flavor to the broth.
Split crackers
Absorb liquid and soften, helping to thicken the chowder and add body.
Flour
Mixed with water and stirred in to thicken the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour slurry after simmering begins. Flour must be suspended in cold water first and added to hot liquid so it disperses evenly; added to a still-cold or unmixed pot it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, flour. 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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