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Hashed Povltby, O-ame, or Babbit

Poultry pieces simmered in broth with onion, thickened with flour to make a gravy, and served with stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashed Povltby, O-ame, or Babbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Cut the poultry into joints.

  2. Place the trimmings in a stew-pan with the broth and onion, then boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Mix the flour with hot broth gradually, then heat until thickened.

  5. Strain again.

Assemble and serve

  1. Wash the stew-pan.

  2. Lay the poultry in the stew-pan and pour the gravy over the poultry.

  3. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  4. Five minutes before serving, warm the stuffing and place it around the dish.

  5. Skim off any fat before serving.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Poultry trimmings
Provide the meat and bones that flavour the broth and gravy base.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and carries the poultry flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth while it simmers.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with hot broth gradually. Adding flour to hot liquid slowly and stirring keeps it dispersed, so the gravy thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper. 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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