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Gravy for Ducks

A savory gravy made from duck giblets, onion, sage, stock, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gravy for Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Place the giblets in a stewpan with the onion, sage leaves, salt, pepper, and stock.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the gravy.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with a little cold water to thicken the gravy.

  2. Boil the gravy once more for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve in a tureen.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied gravy when mixed with cold water first.
Giblets
Slow simmering draws rich, savoury flavour into the stock.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the gravy is built on and reduced from.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold water. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps, because its starch grains swell unevenly on contact. Mixing it smoothly with cold water first lets it disperse evenly before it thickens the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper, 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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