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Gravy for Poultry

A savory gravy made by boiling poultry parts, onion, and cloves, then thickening with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Gravy for Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the neck, gizzard, and liver in water with the onion and cloves.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and a small piece of bread.

  3. When tender, chop the liver and gizzard finely and return to the gravy.

  4. If not thick enough, mix flour with some cooled gravy and add it.

  5. Let it simmer, then strain and serve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Bread
Helps thicken the gravy and give it a smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and a fuller, rounded flavor.

The step that matters

Mixing flour with cooled gravy before adding it. Flour added straight into hot liquid clumps instead of dispersing. Mixing it first with some cooled gravy creates a smooth slurry that thickens evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, onion, pepper, bread, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, onion, pepper, bread, flour, butter. 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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