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Stewed Chicken Giblets with Celery

A stew of chicken giblets, onion, and celery thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Chicken Giblets with Celery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the giblets and cut them into 1‑inch squares.

  2. In a pot, combine the giblets, diced onion, and diced celery.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew the mixture until tender.

  2. Thicken the stew with butter and flour.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Chicken giblets
Provide the main protein and meaty body of the stew.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens into the stew.
Celery
Contributes aroma and mild vegetable flavor and texture to the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid into a more body-rich sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked in the fat and blended into the liquid to avoid lumps and a raw starchy taste. Stirring as it simmers lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the stew smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, 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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