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Turkey Cravy

A savory gravy made from turkey heart, liver, gizzard, and neck, flavored with flour, spices, onion skins, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Turkey Cravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy base

  1. Slash and dredge the turkey heart, liver, gizzard, and neck with flour.

  2. Place in a saucepan with salt, peppercorns, allspice, mace, onion skins, and butter.

  3. Brown the mixture well, then add boiling water to achieve desired thickness.

  4. Cook slowly on low heat for several hours.

Finish in the pan

  1. After removing the turkey from the dripping pan, pour off excess grease.

  2. Add the prepared gravy to the dripping pan and mix well.

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. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Flour and butter 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
Coats the giblets and, once browned and simmered, thickens the liquid into gravy.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the flour and giblets brown and carries flavour.
Turkey heart, liver, gizzard, and neck
Provide the rich meaty flavour that forms the base of the gravy.
Onion skins
Add colour and savoury depth to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Brown the mixture well. Browning the floured giblets and butter triggers the Maillard reaction, which builds deep, roasted flavour and colour. Pale browning leaves the gravy tasting flat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, turkey, flour, allspice, onion, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, turkey, flour, allspice, onion, butter. 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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