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Clam Chowder

A soup made with clams, potatoes, onions, salt pork, crackers, water, milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 broth

  1. Remove the black heads from the soft part of the clams and simmer them in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Slowly fry the salt pork until brown and dry, then add the chopped onions and fry until pale straw color.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the mixture to the water with the clam heads.

Layer and simmer

  1. In a soup kettle, layer the potatoes, soft clams, and season with salt and pepper, then add a layer of crackers.

  2. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, then strain the clam broth over them.

  3. Cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes, then add the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. If desired, strain the clam broth over the pork and onions instead of adding it to the layers.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Clams
Provide the main flavor and tender meat, with their simmered liquor forming the broth.
Potatoes
Add body and substance as they soften during simmering, thickening the chowder slightly.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and adds savory depth to the onions and broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook gently in the pork fat.
Flour
Cooked with the fat and onions, it thickens the broth into a creamy body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the fat. Stirring the flour and cooking it for two minutes with the fat and onions removes its raw taste and lets it thicken the broth smoothly rather than leaving lumps or a pasty flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

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