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Clam Chowder

A soup of clams, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and biscuits simmered together.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the clams

  1. Cut the soft parts from the clams and chop the hard parts finely.

  2. Place the chopped clams in a pot with enough water to cover and cook until tender.

Make the chowder

  1. In a separate pot, combine the sliced onions, diced potatoes, and cooked clams.

  2. Add the tomatoes and soaked biscuits or crackers to the mixture.

  3. Simmer until all ingredients are tender and flavors meld.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Clam + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-shell clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and chewy texture of the chowder.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth as they soften and give the chowder its body.
Pilot biscuit or crackers
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the rich clam broth.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmer until all ingredients are tender. Potatoes need enough time at a gentle simmer to cook through and release starch that thickens the broth. Clams can turn rubbery if overcooked, so they should be cooked only until tender.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, potato, biscuit):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, potato, biscuit. 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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