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Clam-chouder Soup

A hearty soup of clams, onions, potatoes, aromatics, wine, fish broth, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Clam-chouder Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the clams and chop their flesh.

Make the chowder

  1. In a deep, thickly buttered stewpan, combine the chopped clams, minced onions, diced potatoes, aromatics, salt, pepper, nutmeg, cayenne, and mace.

  2. Moisten with enough wine and fish broth to cover the mixture.

  3. Set the stewpan on a brisk fire and boil for 25 to 30 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the bottle of Rhine wine.

  5. Add the bruised crackers or kneaded butter to thicken the soup.

  6. Finish by stirring in the good butter after removing the aromatics.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 flesh and briny flavour that defines the chowder.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, adding body and texture to the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Crackers or kneaded butter
Thicken the soup by absorbing liquid and adding starch.

The step that matters

Stirring in the wine after removing from heat. Alcohol boils off with heat, so adding the wine off the heat keeps more of its aroma and flavour in the finished chowder.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, potato, pepper, nutmeg, wine, fish):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, potato, pepper, nutmeg, wine, fish. 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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