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Giblet Soup

A hearty soup made with goose or duck giblets, mutton or bones, onions, mace, peppercorns, cloves, herbs, water, flour, mushroom catsup or sherry, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,400 recipes mention both. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Giblet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and clean the giblets.

  2. In a pot, combine giblets, mutton (or beef, veal, oxtail, or shank bones), onions, mace, peppercorns, cloves, sweet herbs, and water.

Cook and finish

  1. Simmer until the giblets are tender, cutting them into 3 or 4 pieces.

  2. Stir in cream, flour rubbed smooth with it, and mushroom catsup or sherry.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose or duck giblets
Main meat that gives the soup its rich, savoury flavour as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in, giving it a smoother body.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the finished soup.
Onions
Build sweetness and depth of flavour as they cook down into the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour rubbed smooth with a little liquid first disperses evenly; added in lumps it stays clumped and leaves floury pockets instead of a smooth, lightly thickened soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, clove, flour, mushroom, cream):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Turmericbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, clove, flour, mushroom, cream. 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.

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