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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with cod or haddock, potatoes, salt pork, onions, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the fish by loosening the skin at the head and pulling it down towards the tail.

  2. Run a knife down the back of the fish to remove the bone, then cut the fish into small pieces and wash in cold water.

  3. Boil the head and bones in 2 quarts of hot water.

Make the chowder

  1. In a kettle, layer the sliced potatoes and fish, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Fry the salt pork until brown, then add the sliced onion and fry slowly for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the pork and onion mixture over the fish and potatoes, pressing to extract the gravy.

  4. Pour 1 pint of hot water over the strained mixture to extract more flavor.

  5. Strain the water from the boiled head and bones into the pot, cover, and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  6. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, then add 5 crackers.

  7. Cover and simmer for an additional 10 minutes before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Cod or haddock
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into tender pieces as it simmers.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, thickening the broth and giving the chowder body.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor through the chowder and browns to add savoriness.
All-purpose flour
Layered with the fish and potatoes to help thicken the broth.
Crackers
Soak up liquid and add body, thickening the chowder slightly at the end.
Onion
Softens and sweetens over slow frying, adding aromatic depth to the base.

The step that matters

Frying the salt pork and onion slowly. Browning the pork renders its fat and builds flavor, while slow frying softens the onion and sweetens it without scorching. Scorched pork turns the chowder bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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