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Clam Chowder

A soup made with salt pork, onions, clam water, potatoes, clams, milk, and split crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the salt pork in a kettle, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Simmer the sliced onions in the pork for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the clam water and some fresh water, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. When the mixture is almost done, add the chopped clams and the milk.

  5. Cover the chowder with split crackers that have been wet in cold water.

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. Onion + potatotop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Pork + clamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 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

Salt pork
Renders fat that carries flavor through the chowder base.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they simmer in the rendered pork fat.
Potatoes
Provide starch and body that thicken the chowder and make it hearty.
Clams
Supply the main seafood flavor and tender chewy texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and clams near the end. Milk can scorch or curdle if boiled hard, and overcooked clams turn rubbery, so the mixture should be almost done and kept at a gentle heat when they go in.

Swap the onion

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

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

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