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To Stew Giblets

A stew of cleaned giblets simmered with onion, herbs, spices, and gravy, thickened with flour and butter, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew Giblets

Ingredients

Directions

Stew

  1. Place the giblets in a stewpan with the onion, parsley, thyme, sage, allspice, pepper, salt, and gravy.

  2. Let them stew until tender.

Trim and thicken

  1. Remove from heat, place giblets in cold water, and trim them neatly.

  2. Strain the gravy, thicken it with flour and butter, and add the sherry.

Serve

  1. Warm the giblets in the gravy and 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Giblets
Form the main body of the dish; long stewing makes them tender.
Gravy
Provides the liquid that stews the giblets and forms the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy into a smooth, coating sauce.
Butter
Combines with flour to make a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Let them stew until tender. Giblets are tough connective tissue and need gentle, sustained simmering to break down and become tender. Stopping early leaves them chewy, while a hard boil can toughen the meat and make the gravy cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, sage, allspice, pepper, flour, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, sage, allspice, pepper, flour, butter. 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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