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Clam Chowder

A soup made with clams, potatoes, pork, milk, and optional onions, tomatoes, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Wash the clams and place them in a kettle.

  2. Pour just enough boiling water over the clams to cover them.

  3. Pour off the clam liquor and save it.

  4. Cool the clams and shell them.

Make the chowder

  1. Fry the pork slices in the bottom of the kettle.

  2. Pour 2 quarts of boiling clam liquor over the pork.

  3. Add the sliced potatoes and cook until nearly done.

  4. Stir in the clams and hot milk.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Add crackers or stale bread.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Cover the pot and let the crackers steam until soft.

  9. Optionally add fried onions, tomatoes, and spices to taste.

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 + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and texture of the chowder.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that thicken the chowder as they cook.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a rich, mellow body to the broth.
Crackers or stale bread
Soak up liquid and thicken the chowder as they steam soft.
Pork
Renders fat into the kettle that carries savory flavor into the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk with the clams. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard, so it should be heated and stirred in gently once the potatoes are nearly done, keeping the chowder hot but not boiling.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, pork, potato, milk, pepper, bread, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, pork, potato, milk, pepper, bread, tomato. 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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