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Plain Gravy for Roast Poultry and Game

A simple gravy made with water, salt, peppercorns, shallot, mushrooms, bread, and beef shin, simmered with poultry feet and neck.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plain Gravy for Roast Poultry and Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. About 30 minutes before cooking, cut off the feet and neck of the fowl.

  2. Scald the feet and neck, then remove the skin and feathers.

Make the gravy

  1. Place them in a small saucepan with cold water, salt, peppercorns, shallot, mushrooms, toasted bread, and shin of beef.

  2. Cook until the fowl is done, then remove the fat from the gravy.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Shallot + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,103 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Adds meaty flavour and body to the stock as it simmers.
Toasted bread
Thickens the gravy slightly and adds a toasted, savoury note.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet onion aroma to the liquid.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy, savoury flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Cook until the fowl is done, then remove the fat. Simmering gently keeps the liquid clear and extracts flavour without boiling it cloudy. Skimming the fat afterwards gives a clean, less greasy gravy.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, beef):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, beef. 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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