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Fish Chowder

A soup made with salt pork, fish, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fish Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the salt pork into dice and fry until crisp and brown.

  2. Transfer the pork to a kettle.

Layer and cook

  1. Cut the potatoes and add them to the kettle along with half of the finely chopped onion.

  2. Lay the pieces of fish in the kettle and top with the remaining onion.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add enough water to cover the fish.

  4. Pour the canned tomatoes over everything and cover the kettle.

  5. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the milk and let it scald again before serving.

  2. Serve with tomato ketchup.

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 + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Salt pork
Fried until crisp, it renders fat and flavour into the chowder base.
Fish
Flakes into tender pieces that give the chowder its main body and substance.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and thicken the broth while adding starchy body.
Canned tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the rich milk and pork fat.
Onions
Release sweet aromatic flavour as they cook into the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished chowder.

The step that matters

Let the milk scald, do not boil. Milk added to a hot chowder can curdle or turn grainy if it boils hard. Heating it only until steaming keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, fish, potato, tomato, pepper, milk. 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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