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Gravy and Stuffing

A gravy and stuffing mixture for duck, made with broth, liver, bread crumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gravy and Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Clean the giblets thoroughly.

  2. Boil the giblets, except the liver, in 1 pint of water with the chopped onion, salt, and pepper for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the broth and add browning sauce, coratch, and mushroom catsup.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mince the raw liver with sage leaves, a small onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix in butter and grated bread crumbs, or mash boiled potatoes with cream or butter, adding salt, pepper, and the egg yolk.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the duck with the mixture before roasting.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Raw liver
Provides rich, savory flavor and moisture to the minced stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and a light texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Boiled potatoes
Add starch and softness, giving the stuffing a creamy, moist texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Mince the raw liver with the seasonings. Raw liver cooks quickly and can turn dry or grainy if overcooked inside the bird. Finely mincing it spreads its flavor and moisture evenly through the stuffing so it stays tender as the duck roasts.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sauce, mushroom, liver, sage, butter, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce, mushroom, liver, sage, butter, bread. 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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