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Economical Gravy for Poultry

A savory gravy made from poultry feet, neck, and other parts, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Economical Gravy for Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the poultry feet and cut them and the neck into small pieces.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer the feet, neck, browned bread, onion, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, liver, gizzard, and water until reduced by half.

  2. Remove the liver, mash it, and strain the liquid into it.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.

  4. Stir in the mushroom ketchup and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, coating gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the gravy.
Liver
Mashed into the liquid, it adds depth and body to the gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer until reduced by half. Reducing concentrates the flavor of the stock and gelatin from the feet and neck. Stopping too early leaves the gravy thin and bland, while over-reducing can make it overly salty and sticky.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, liver, 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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