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Corn Chowder

A hearty soup of onions, potatoes, corn, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chowder base

  1. Fry the onions in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the sliced potatoes and cover with water.

  3. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  4. Add the corn and cook for another 30 minutes.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

Finish and thicken

  1. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix the remaining butter with flour and add to the chowder.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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
Break down partly during cooking to give the chowder body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps soften the onions without browning them heavily.
Whole milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the broth.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the chowder a smoother, heavier body.
Corn
Adds sweetness and its own starchy body to the chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture. Flour needs heat and stirring to thicken without lumps. Add it to the simmering chowder while stirring, then keep it at a gentle boil long enough for the starch to swell and thicken the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, corn, pepper, milk, 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.

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