Why it works: Clam and pork work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Clam Chowder
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the clams
Pour boiling water over the clams until covered.
Let the clams sit until the shells open.
Remove the clams from their shells.
Cut off the black heads.
Rinse the clams in the scalding liquid to remove sand.
Cook and serve
Layer the clams with fried pork in a pan.
Add the water used to scald the clams to the pan.
Cook the mixture.
Serve as fish chowder, adding salt to taste.
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.
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Clam + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together305 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
- Long clams
- Provide the main seafood body and flavour of the chowder.
- Fried pork
- Adds fat and savoury, browned flavour to the broth.
- Scalding liquid (in the method)
- Carries clam flavour into the pan and rinses out sand from the clams.
The step that matters
Rinse the clams in the scalding liquid to remove sand. Clams hold grit inside and between their shells, and sand left behind becomes gritty in the finished chowder. Rinsing in the warm liquid loosens it while the clams are still tender from scalding.
“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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