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Gravy for Roast Turkey

A gravy made from turkey neck, heart, liver, and gizzard simmered with water, salt, pepper, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the turkey neck, heart, liver, and gizzard with 1½ cups of cold water and ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently until tender.

  3. Remove the neck and leave the gizzard whole.

Finish the gravy

  1. Finely chop the liver and heart or pass them through a sieve.

  2. Mix in a small piece of butter and a little flour.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan with the reserved water.

  4. Add ¼ teaspoon of black pepper.

  5. Boil gently, stirring constantly until smooth.

  6. Optionally, remove fat from turkey drippings and stir it into the gravy.

  7. Boil for a few minutes before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which carries flavor and smooths the gravy's texture.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly until smooth. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if not stirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly into a smooth gravy.

“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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