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Giblet Soup

A soup made from roast chicken bones, giblets, onion, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Break up the skeletons of the roast chicken.

  2. Place the bones, stuffing, and giblets in a soup pot with 4 quarts of water.

  3. Boil for 1 hour.

  4. Remove the giblets.

  5. Boil the remaining mixture for another hour.

  6. Strain the mixture.

  7. Cool the strained broth.

  8. Skim the fat.

  9. Return the strained broth to the fire to simmer.

Make the onion and flour base

  1. Fry the sliced onion in 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Stir in a large spoonful of browned flour.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Thin the mixture with a few spoonfuls of the soup.

  6. Strain the mixture into the soup kettle.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped giblets.

  2. Season well.

  3. 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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

Skeletons of roast chicken
Simmered in water to release flavour and body into the broth.
Giblets from the chicken
Add rich, meaty flavour to the broth as they simmer.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion, carrying its flavour into the soup.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth and adds a toasty, nutty depth of flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavour when fried gently in butter.

The step that matters

Cook the browned flour for 5 minutes. Flour must be cooked and stirred constantly so it dissolves smoothly without lumps and thickens evenly; stopping early leaves a raw, pasty taste and grainy texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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