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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup made with fish, potatoes, onions, sea biscuits, salt pork, thyme, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry one-third of the salt pork with one-third of the onions until browned.

  2. Set the browned pork and onions aside.

Layer and cook

  1. In a clean kettle, layer raw salt pork and fish.

  2. Season the layers with black pepper, red pepper, and ground cloves.

  3. Add a layer of potatoes.

  4. Add a layer of onions.

  5. Add a layer of the fried pork and onions.

  6. Add a layer of half the sea biscuits.

  7. Season each layer.

  8. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used, seasoning as directed.

  9. Pour cold water into the kettle until it covers the ingredients.

  10. Cover the kettle.

  11. Boil slowly until the potatoes are cooked.

  12. Add the claret.

  13. Bring the mixture to just boiling.

  14. Remove the thyme.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen.

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. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Thicken the chowder as they cook and soften, giving body to the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the broth as it fries and cooks.
Porgies
Provide the fish that flakes into the chowder as it simmers.
Sea biscuits
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder as they break down.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the potatoes are cooked. Boiling too hard can break up the fish and cloud the broth, while gentle simmering keeps the fish in pieces and lets the potatoes cook through evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, biscuit, pork, pepper, thyme. 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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