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Giblet Soup

A hearty soup made from poultry gizzards, necks, and leg bones simmered with herbs, spices, and a roux thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Clean the gizzards and necks in warm water.

  2. Rinse the gizzards and necks in two or three waters.

  3. Divide the gizzards and necks into small pieces.

  4. Crack the bones of the legs.

  5. Place the pieces in a stewpan with 1 gallon of cold water.

Simmer the stock

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Skim off the scum as it rises.

  3. Reduce the heat.

  4. Simmer gently for about 2 hours until tender.

  5. Remove the giblets with a skimmer.

  6. Wash the giblets in cold water.

  7. Return the cooking liquid to the heat.

  8. Add thyme, marjoram, savory, onion, cloves, allspice, black pepper, mace, mushroom catsup, salt, and white wine.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a separate quart stewpan.

  2. Stir in enough flour to make a paste.

  3. Add a ladleful of giblet liquor to the paste. Mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture back into the stewpan with the giblet liquor. Stir well.

  5. Let it boil gently for another 30 minutes.

  6. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

  7. Add the giblets before serving.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Gizzards and necks of poultry
Give the soup its main meaty flavour and body as they simmer.
Bones of poultry legs
Release gelatin and savoury depth into the stock during long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and gives the flour paste a rich, smooth base.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the savoury broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour must be cooked in fat before liquid is added, and the paste mixed smooth, or it forms lumps. Boiling the mixture gently afterward cooks out the raw flour taste and fully thickens the soup.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, marjoram, winter savory, clove, allspice, pepper, mace):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, marjoram, winter savory, clove, allspice, pepper, mace. 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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