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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with fish, pork, onions, potatoes, milk, crackers, and seasonings.

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

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the fish.

  2. Cut all the flesh from the bones.

  3. Put the bones in a pot with 1 quart of water.

  4. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  5. Fry the pork.

Make the chowder

  1. Add the sliced onions and cook covered for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the flour.

  3. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring often.

  4. Strain the water from the fish bones into the pot.

  5. Boil gently for 5 minutes.

  6. Strain the mixture over the potatoes and fish.

  7. Season with salt and pepper.

  8. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Soak the crackers in the milk for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the milk and crackers to the pot.

  3. Let it boil once.

  4. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder and provides its flavour.
Pork
Fried first to add savoury fat and flavour to the base.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thicken the chowder as they cook.
Flour
Cooked with the onions to thicken the broth into a smoother texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the finished chowder.
Crackers or biscuits
Soaked in milk and added to soften and thicken the chowder.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour. Flour must be cooked for several minutes with the onions and fat so its raw starch swells and thickens smoothly rather than tasting pasty or forming lumps. Stirring often keeps it from scorching and sticking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, milk, flour, biscuit, 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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