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Salt Fish Chowder

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Salt Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fish and soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. Cut the salt pork into small dice and fry until crisp and brown.

  3. Add the chopped onions to the pork and fry slowly until golden brown.

Layer and simmer

  1. In a soup pot, layer the fish broken into flakes, followed by a layer of potatoes.

  2. Dredge with salt, pepper, and flour, then add some of the onion and pork mixture.

  3. Add a layer of split crackers and repeat the layering until all ingredients are used.

  4. Pour in the 3 pints of cold water and bring to a simmer without boiling for 1 hour.

  5. After 1 hour, add the milk and cook for an additional 30 minutes, ensuring it does not boil.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Dried salt fish
Provides the main savory flavor and flaky texture of the chowder.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and browns into crisp, savory bits.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering to thicken the broth and add body.
Soft crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the chowder as they break down.
Flour
Thickens the broth as it cooks, giving it a smoother body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Once milk is added, boiling can curdle it and make the texture grainy. Keeping the chowder at a gentle simmer keeps the milk smooth and the fish tender.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, potato, 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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