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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with fish, pork fat, onions, potatoes, pepper, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the base

  1. Fry the sliced salt pork in a pot until moderately cooked.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until softened.

Layer and assemble

  1. Layer the fish pieces in the pot, followed by a layer of potatoes, then the fried onions.

  2. Season each layer with pepper, salt, and a sprinkle of flour.

  3. Add a slice or two of the pork on top and repeat the layering until all ingredients are used.

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. 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. Onion + peppertop 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the chowder, flaking into the broth as it cooks.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor through the pot and seasons the layers.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, thickening the chowder as they cook down.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when softened in the rendered pork fat.
Flour
Lightly thickens the liquid so the chowder becomes creamy rather than watery.

The step that matters

Layering and seasoning each layer. Seasoning every layer with pepper, salt and flour spreads flavor and thickening evenly, so the chowder is not bland in places or clumped with flour in others.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, 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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