Name: Corn Chowder
Ingredients: 4 slices of pork, cut up fine; 2 onions, cut up fine; 1 quart boiling water; 2 potatoes, cut in small pieces; 1 can corn; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1½ tablespoons sugar; 1 pint milk or 1 can tomato soup

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

Fry the pork in a pot until browned.
Add the onions and fry until light brown.
Pour in the boiling water and add the potatoes.
Once the potatoes are cooked, stir in the corn, salt, pepper, and sugar.
Finally, add the milk or tomato soup and heat through.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together938 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,069 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork: Browns in the pot first, adding savory flavor to the broth.
Onions: Softening and lightly browning them builds sweetness and depth in the base.
Potatoes: Cook into tender pieces that add body and starch to the chowder.
Corn: Adds sweetness and texture to the finished chowder.
Milk: Adds creaminess and richness to the broth when heated through.

The step that matters

Adding the milk or tomato soup. Dairy can curdle or scorch if it boils hard, so add it near the end and heat it gently just until hot through.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

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