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Gravy for Poultry

A gravy made from boiled giblets, flour, salt, pepper, butter, and turkey drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy for Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the giblets until very tender and chop them finely.

  2. Take the cooking liquid and thicken it with flour.

  3. Season the gravy with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a little butter.

  4. Add the chopped giblets and the drippings from the roasted turkey.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + turkeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + turkeytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich gravy as it cooks.
Drippings from roasted turkey
Add concentrated meaty flavor and fat that carry the gravy's savory taste.
Giblets
Contribute savory meat flavor and texture once boiled tender and chopped.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the cooking liquid with flour. Flour must be cooked in liquid long enough to swell and set the starch; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a grainy, thin texture.

“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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