Skip to main content
Main

Giblet Soup

A hearty soup made with beef or veal, giblets, onions, carrots, shallot, and seasonings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef or veal into 2 to 3‑inch pieces.

  2. Clean the giblets thoroughly, split the heads, cut the gizzards across, and crack the pinion and feet bones.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the meat and giblets with butter, onions, carrots, and shallot.

  2. Cook over low heat for a few minutes to draw out the gravy.

  3. Add enough water or broth to cover the mixture.

  4. Simmer for 2 hours or more.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, and ketchup before serving.

  6. If desired, add rice or barley to thicken as soon as it boils.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef skirts or veal knuckle
Provides meat and rich flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour from the vegetables and meat.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the stewpan.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.
Rice or barley
Thickens the soup as the starch releases during simmering.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat to draw out the gravy. Gentle heat at the start pulls flavour from the meat and giblets into the fat and juices. Hot, rapid heat can seize the proteins and leave the broth less savoury.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turkey, butter, onion, carrot, clove, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Leekbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turkey, butter, onion, carrot, clove, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

More giblet soup recipes

Chicken 12Duck 7Clear 4Irish 3Lamb 3Turkey 3 See all 146 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes