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Clam Chowder No. 1

A hearty soup of salt pork, clams, potatoes, onions, crackers, and milk, seasoned with clam liquor and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the salt pork in a kettle until the fat is extracted.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until brown.

Assemble and cook

  1. Layer the diced potatoes, clams, and broken crackers in the kettle, seasoning each layer.

  2. Pour in the clam liquor and add the hot milk.

  3. Let it boil for 20 minutes and serve as soup.

  4. Add a dash of red pepper for extra flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pork + clamtop 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and body, thickening the chowder as they cook.
Clams
Supply the main seafood flavor and tender texture.
Crackers
Soak up liquid and help thicken the chowder.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the broth.
Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor through the kettle.

The step that matters

Let it boil for 20 minutes. Boiling after the hot milk is added can curdle or scorch the milk and make the chowder grainy. Keep the heat controlled so the potatoes cook through without the milk breaking.

Swap the onion

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

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

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