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Giblet Stew

A stew made from turkey or goose giblets simmered with water, spices, onion, ketchup, anchovy, and finished with cream and a flour‑butter roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Giblet Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Cut the pinions in two parts.

  2. Cut the neck in four pieces.

  3. Slice the gizzard and liver.

Cook and finish

  1. Combine the giblets in a pot with 2 quarts of water, pepper, coarse sea salt, marjoram, onion, ketchup, and anchovy.

  2. Cook until tender.

  3. Stir in the cream and thicken the stew with a mixture of flour and butter.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Marjoram + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Ketchup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stew as it cooks with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that thickens and enriches the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth without a fishy taste once cooked into the broth.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the savory broth.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour and butter. Flour needs fat and time to hydrate evenly. Mixing it with butter first and stirring it into simmering liquid helps prevent lumps and gives a smooth, consistent thickness.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, liver, pepper, onion, ketchup, anchovy, cream):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, liver, pepper, onion, ketchup, anchovy, cream. 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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