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Gravy for a Fowl

A savory gravy made from chicken feet, neck, liver, gizzard, and aromatics simmered in water and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy for a Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chicken feet and cut them and the neck into small pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer them with toasted bread, onion, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, liver, and gizzard in water until half evaporated.

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

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter, then add mushroom catsup.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Combines with the flour to add richness and a silky mouthfeel to the gravy.
Chicken feet
Release gelatin during simmering, giving the gravy body and a rich texture.
Liver
Adds deep savory flavor and helps color and thicken the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked in the fat and then the liquid to avoid lumps and raw starch taste. Whisking the mixture smoothly while it heats lets the starch swell evenly, producing a smooth, properly thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, liver, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, liver, flour. 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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