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Gravy for a Fowl

A savory gravy made from chicken feet, neck, liver, gizzard, and herbs, thickened with flour and mushroom catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Gravy for a Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer them with toasted bread, onion, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, liver, gizzard, and water until half the liquid evaporates.

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

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and add mushroom catsup.

  4. Simmer for a few minutes until well combined.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken feet
Release gelatin and collagen that give the gravy body and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch thickens the simmering liquid into a smooth, pourable gravy.
Liver
Breaks down into the mixture when mashed, adding richness and depth of flavour.
Toasted bread
Adds toasty flavour and helps body the liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be well mixed into the hot liquid so it disperses without lumps. Starch granules swell and thicken only when heated in the liquid, so adding it unevenly leaves clumps and a thin, patchy gravy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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