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Clam Chowder

A hearty soup made with pork, potatoes, clams, butter, milk, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Layer and stew

  1. In a pot, layer sliced pork, chopped potatoes, chopped clams, coarse sea salt, pepper, and lumps of butter.

  2. Add broken crackers soaked in milk, then cover with clam juice and water.

  3. Stew slowly for three hours.

Finish

  1. Thicken with a little flour and season with spices if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sliced pork
Adds savory, fatty flavor to the broth as it stews.
Chopped potatoes
Break down slightly during stewing, adding body and starch to the broth.
Chopped clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and briny character of the chowder.
Broken crackers
Soak up milk and dissolve into the broth, adding body and thickness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smoother, more cohesive body.

The step that matters

Thicken with a little flour. Flour must be stirred in evenly so it hydrates and gelatinizes without forming lumps. Adding too much or too quickly can make the chowder pasty, while too little leaves it thin.

“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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