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Gravy for Poultry

A savory gravy made from poultry parts, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, bread, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the broth

  1. Boil the neck, gizzard, and liver in 1½ pints of water with the onion, cloves, pepper, salt, and bread.

  2. Once the liver and gizzard are tender, chop them finely and return them to the gravy.

Thicken and serve

  1. Add the butter and stir well.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with some cooled gravy until smooth.

  3. Add the thickened mixture to the pot.

  4. Let the gravy 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. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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 into a smooth, coating sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished gravy.
Liver
Contributes deep, savory flavor to the broth.
Gizzard
Adds meaty body and savory depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the gravy. Flour added straight to hot liquid forms lumps because its starch clumps before it disperses. Mixing it first with cooled gravy into a smooth paste lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the gravy thickens smoothly when simmered.

Swap the clove

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

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

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