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Gravy for Turkey

A gravy made from turkey organs and drippings, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,636 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Gravy for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the giblet stock

  1. Combine the neck, heart, liver, and gizzard with 1 pint of water in a stew-pan.

  2. Boil until tender.

  3. Remove the organs from the water.

  4. Chop the heart and gizzard, mash the liver, and discard the neck.

  5. Return the chopped heart, gizzard, and mashed liver to the cooking liquid.

Finish the gravy

  1. Once the turkey is done, pour off the fat from the dripping pan.

  2. Add the liquid mixture to the turkey drippings.

  3. Heat over the fire.

  4. Boil for 3 minutes.

  5. Thicken with flour.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

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. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Liver + turkeytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turkey drippings
Provide the fat and roasted flavor that give the gravy its base.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into gravy as its starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid long enough for its starch to swell and lose its raw taste. Adding it too late or too cold leaves lumps or a pasty flavor.

“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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