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To Stew Giblets

A stew of gizzards seasoned with salt, pepper, shallot, mace, cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Stew Giblets

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the gizzards until perfectly tender.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, minced shallot, and a small piece of mace.

  3. Before serving, bring to a boil and add 1 cup of cream.

  4. Rub 1 tablespoon of butter into 1 teaspoon of flour and mix in.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Gizzards
Main protein; slow stewing breaks down connective tissue so they become tender.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the stewing liquid as it is brought to a boil.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour forms a paste that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when rubbed with butter and mixed in.

The step that matters

Bringing the cream to a boil. Cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard or for too long. Bring it up gently, and add the butter and flour mixture so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, shallot, cream, butter, 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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