Skip to main content
Main

Clam Chowder

A creamy clam chowder with clams, bacon or ham, milk, potatoes, onions, parsley, crackers, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clam Chowder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the bacon or ham and cook it in a pot until crispy.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until translucent.

  3. Stir in the cubed potatoes and cook for a few minutes.

Cook and season

  1. Add the quahogs or clams and cover with milk.

  2. Simmer until the clams open and the potatoes are tender.

  3. Stir in the minced parsley, crushed cracker, marjoram, salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + marjoramtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Quahogs or long clams
Provide the main seafood flavor and body of the chowder.
Potato
Adds starch that thickens the broth and gives it a creamy, hearty texture.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Bacon or ham
Contributes fat and smoky, savory flavor from rendered drippings.
Pilot cracker
Crushed into the chowder to help thicken the liquid slightly.

The step that matters

Simmer until the clams open. Clams turn rubbery when overcooked, while undercooking leaves them unsafe; simmering gently until they open cooks them through while keeping them tender. Milk can also scorch or curdle if it boils hard, so keep the heat low.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, ham, milk, onion, potato, parsley, marjoram):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, ham, milk, onion, potato, parsley, marjoram. 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.

More clam chowder recipes

Baked 5New England 5Coney Island 3Manhattan 3 See all 243 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes