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Gravy for Poultry

A savory gravy made from poultry giblets, onion, and herbs, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Gravy for Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the neck, feet, giblets, water, herbs, and onion in a pot.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish the gravy

  1. Pound the liver.

  2. Add it to the strained liquid.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour to your desired consistency.

  4. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little mushroom ketchup.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  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

Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the stock.
Poultry giblets and trimmings
Provide rich, concentrated meaty flavor to the stock.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to thicken the gravy and add richness.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked with the fat before or as it meets the liquid, and the gravy must be simmered briefly. Otherwise it can taste raw and form lumps, and it thickens unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, 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.

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