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Ham Chowder

A thickened soup of potatoes, carrots, ham, and spices served over broken crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Ham Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder

  1. Cook the diced potatoes and shredded carrots in boiling water until done.

  2. Add the diced ham, onion juice, and whole cloves.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and cornstarch mixed with milk.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour the chowder over broken crackers and serve immediately.

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 + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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
Soften and thicken the chowder body as they cook, giving it substance.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Cold boiled ham
Contributes savory, salty meat flavor to the chowder.
Flour and cornstarch
Thicken the liquid into a smooth, creamy consistency.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the thickened base.
Broken crackers
Soak up the chowder and add body when served.

The step that matters

Thicken with the flour and cornstarch mixture. Starch must be mixed smoothly with cold milk before adding it, or it clumps. Starch granules swell and thicken only when heated in liquid, so the mixture should be stirred into the hot chowder and kept moving until it thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, carrot, ham, clove, flour, milk, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, carrot, ham, clove, flour, 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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