Skip to main content
Starter

Fish Chowder

A stew of sliced potatoes, cod, salt pork, crackers, and seasonings simmered with flour slurry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sliced potatoes in cold water.

  2. In a stew kettle, layer the bottom with fat salt pork.

  3. Add a layer of fish, then a layer of split crackers, followed by a layer of potatoes. Repeat until the kettle is full.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  5. Add 1 quart of water.

Cook

  1. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ½ cup of water and pour it in after the stew begins to simmer.

  2. Cover tightly and simmer for 3 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that softens during long simmering and thickens the broth slightly.
Fresh cod
Flaky protein that breaks into the broth as it cooks.
Fat salt pork
Renders fat into the kettle, adding richness and savory flavor.
Split crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the chowder as they soften.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, heavier broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour slurry after simmering begins. Flour mixed with water and added to a simmering liquid disperses more evenly and thickens smoothly. Added to a cold or boiling liquid it can clump or stay floury.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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

More fish chowder recipes

New England 5Salt 3 See all 159 →

You might also like

Deviled OystersDeviled Oysters25 recipes