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Fish Chowder

A hearty soup of haddock, potatoes, onions, and salt pork simmered in water.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crisp the salt pork in a kettle.

  2. Peel and cube the potatoes into half-inch pieces.

  3. Slice the onions finely.

Cook the chowder

  1. Remove the pork, add potatoes and onions, season with salt and pepper, and cover with water.

  2. Wash the haddock and place it on top of the potatoes.

  3. Cook until done, about twenty minutes.

  4. Remove the fish, take out bones and skin, and return 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. 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Renders fat for frying and adds savory, salty flavor to the chowder.
Potatoes
Provide starch and body, thickening the broth and giving the chowder its substance.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they soften in the broth.
Haddock
Forms the main protein, flaking into tender pieces as it cooks gently in the broth.

The step that matters

Cook until done, about twenty minutes. Simmering fish too hard or too long toughens its protein and breaks it apart. Cook gently until the flesh just flakes, so it stays tender in the chowder.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, pepper, haddock. 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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