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Potato Chowder

A layered potato chowder with salt pork, onions, flour, and water, simmered for 40 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Potato Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork and onions

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pot slowly until light brown.

  2. Add the sliced onions and cook until they are light brown.

Layer and cook

  1. Layer sliced potatoes in a soup kettle.

  2. Layer pork and onions over the potatoes.

  3. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and flour over the layers.

  4. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

  5. Add water.

  6. Bring the chowder to a boil.

  7. Reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes.

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

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the chowder and soften into the broth, giving body to the soup.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor and browns the onions, adding savory depth.
Onions
Browning sweetens them and builds a savory base for the broth.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as it simmers, giving the chowder a creamier texture.

The step that matters

Browning the salt pork and onions. Slow frying renders the pork fat and caramelizes the onions' sugars. This browned base gives the chowder its depth, so pale or rushed frying leaves the soup flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, 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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