Skip to main content
Main

Giblet Soup

A hearty soup made with giblets, water or stock, vegetables, herbs, rice, and optional milk, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash the giblets well and cut them into pieces.

  2. Place the giblets in a pan with water and salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, then add the diced vegetables and herbs.

  4. Simmer steadily for three hours.

  5. Add the washed rice and simmer for an additional half hour.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, stir in a little heated milk before serving.

  2. Place chopped parsley in a tureen and pour the hot soup over it.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Giblets
Provide the main meaty flavour and body as they simmer slowly for hours.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch softens during the final simmer.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and a soft texture as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter, so removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, carrot, turnip, rice, pepper, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, carrot, turnip, rice, pepper, parsley. 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.

More giblet soup recipes

Chicken 12Duck 7Clear 4Irish 3Lamb 3Turkey 3 See all 146 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes