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Giblet Soup

A savory soup made from goose or duck giblets simmered with herbs, onion, and spices, thickened with flour and butter, finished with catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Wash the giblets in warm water two to three times.

  2. Break the bones and cut the neck and gizzards into pieces; split the head in two.

  3. For goose giblets, use two sets; for duck giblets, use four sets.

  4. Add 1 pint of water for each set of giblets in a pot.

Make the soup

  1. Bring to a boil gradually, skimming off the scum.

  2. Once boiling, add sweet herbs, pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, and the onion.

  3. Let it stew for 1.5 to 2 hours until the gizzards are tender.

  4. Remove the giblets and strain the soup.

  5. Thicken the soup with a little flour and butter.

  6. Flavor with catsup or Harvey's sauce and serve the giblets with the soup.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Giblets
Provide the main meat and rich flavor that the broth is built on.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is cooked with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour thicken the soup smoothly.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it stews.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum while bringing to a boil. Bringing the water to a boil gradually and skimming off the foam removes impurities that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste bitter. Skimming keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

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