Skip to main content
Main

Gravy Made Without Meat for Fowls

A gravy made from fowl necks, feet, livers, gizzards, bread, onion, herbs, and ketchup, simmered and thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gravy Made Without Meat for Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash the feet of the fowls and cut them and the neck into small pieces.

  2. Put the feet, neck, bread, onion, herbs, seasoning, livers, and gizzards into a pot.

Simmer and finish

  1. Pour the water over the mixture and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the liver, pound it, and strain the liquid into it.

  3. Add a thickening of butter and flour, and stir in the ketchup.

  4. Boil it up and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Fowl necks, feet, livers, and gizzards
Provide the main meaty flavor and body of the gravy as they simmer.
Butter and flour thickening
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly coated gravy.
Toasted bread
Adds body and helps soften and thicken the simmered liquid.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the thickening and boil it up. Flour needs to be fully stirred in and brought to a boil so its starch swells and thickens the gravy evenly and loses its raw floury taste. Stirring while adding prevents lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, pepper, butter, flour, ketchup. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes