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To Stew Giblets

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Stew Giblets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the giblets as directed for giblet pie until the gizzards are tender.

  2. Cut each gizzard and liver into four pieces, the neck into three, and the wings into two.

Finish

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Before serving, bring to a boil and add the cream.

  3. Mix in butter rubbed with flour.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the stew a smooth, velvety texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce when rubbed with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flour so it blends smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Flour stirred in raw or in lumps can leave the sauce gritty or pasty. Rubbing it into butter first coats the starch grains so they disperse evenly and thicken smoothly as the liquid heats.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, 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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