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Stewed Giblets

A stew of cleaned and simmered poultry giblets with herbs, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Stewed Giblets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Prepare the giblets by scalding to remove feathers.

  2. Wash giblets in salt and water to remove blood clots, rubbing with salt.

  3. Remove the gall bladder from the liver without breaking it.

  4. Scald and skin the feet and gizzard, then open and empty the gizzard.

  5. Wash the giblets thoroughly in two or three waters.

  6. Cut the liver and gizzard into two pieces, and chop the legs and pinions in half.

  7. Chop the beak from the head and separate the head from the neck.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the giblets in a stewpan with stock and chopped vegetables.

  2. Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until tender, then thicken the gravy with flour.

  3. Serve the giblets on a hot dish and strain the gravy over them.

  4. Garnish with fried or toasted bread sippets.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Giblets
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until tender. Connective tissue in giblets, especially the gizzard and feet, breaks down only with long, gentle simmering. Boiling hard toughens the meat and clouds the stock, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, thyme, marjoram, flour):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, thyme, marjoram, 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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