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Gravy for Poultry

A gravy made from poultry giblets, flour, butter, and drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy for Poultry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Chop the gizzard and heart very finely.

  2. Brown the liver quickly in a pan and place it on a platter.

  3. Boil the water from the giblets until it reduces to 1 cup.

Make the gravy

  1. Mix the flour with the butter until smooth, then add to the boiling water.

  2. Boil slowly for 5 minutes, keeping it hot.

  3. Skim off most of the oil from the drippings after removing the poultry.

  4. Add enough drippings to the gravy to make 1 pint.

  5. Stir thoroughly and add salt if needed.

  6. Serve hot in a nice dish.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Liver + walnuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Lightly browned flour thickens the gravy as it cooks in the liquid.
Butter
Fat blended with the flour helps it mix smoothly into the boiling liquid without lumps.
Drippings from poultry
Adds rich fat and roasted flavor to the gravy.
Liver
Browned liver adds deeper savory flavor, though it is served separately here.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with the butter until smooth, then add to the boiling water.. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unblended. Working it smooth with fat first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens without lumps.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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