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Tomato and Corn Chowder

A chowder made with fat salt pork, onions, tomatoes, sweet corn, and hot water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tomato and Corn Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the pork pieces in a pot with the onions until the onions are soft but not browned.

  2. Add the sliced tomatoes and stew until nearly done.

  3. Stir in the sweet corn and hot water, season with salt and pepper to taste, and cook for about 10 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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

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

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

Fat salt pork
Renders fat to cook the onions and adds savory, salty flavor to the chowder.
Onions
Soften during frying to build a sweet, mellow base for the chowder.
Tomatoes
Break down while stewing to add acidity, body and moisture to the chowder.
Sweet corn
Adds sweetness and texture to the chowder.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until soft but not browned. Browning the onions would add bitter, caramelized notes that clash with the light tomato and corn flavors, while cooking them until soft lets their sugars mellow and sweeten the base.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, corn, 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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