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Clam Chowder

A hearty soup of clams, potatoes, pork, milk, butter, flour, and hard tack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the clams.

  2. Cut the pork into small dice and fry in butter with the finely chopped onion until the pork is brown and crisp.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir in the flour and gradually add the milk and enough water to make a quart.

  2. Meanwhile, slice the potatoes and boil them slowly in a quart of water.

Combine and cook

  1. Add the thickened gravy, chopped clams, and hard tack to the potatoes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper and cook all together for 15 minutes.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Clam + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and texture of the chowder.
Potatoes
Add body and starch that soften during slow boiling, thickening the chowder.
Pork
Renders fat and browns, adding savory flavor to the base.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the chowder richness and smoothness.
Flour
Thickens the milk and water into a gravy through starch gelatinization.
Hard tack
Absorbs liquid and adds bulk and body to the chowder.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and flour gravy. Stirring in flour and adding milk gradually keeps the gravy smooth, because flour clumps if it meets liquid all at once. Once the thickened gravy goes into the hot potato liquid, cook gently so the milk does not scorch or curdle.

Swap the onion

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

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

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