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Turkey Giblets, Fricasseed

A stew of turkey giblets simmered with butter, herbs, onion, and stock, thickened with brown roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Turkey Giblets, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the giblets

  1. Clean the turkey giblets thoroughly. Skin and trim the feet, skin the gizzard and cut it into quarters, cut the neck into four pieces, and slice the liver.

  2. Dissolve the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Add the giblets, parsley, thyme, basil, onion, pepper, and salt.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Fry gently until lightly browned.

  2. Pour in the stock and let it simmer gently until cooked through.

  3. Remove the giblets, skim, and strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with a small amount of brown roux.

  5. Return the giblets to the pan for a few more minutes of simmering.

Serve

  1. Arrange them neatly on a dish and pour the gravy over them.

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. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Basil + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey giblets
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers in the stock.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps the giblets brown lightly.
Stock
Liquid that cooks the giblets and forms the base of the gravy.
Brown roux
Flour and fat cooked together to thicken the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma as it softens and browns with the giblets.

The step that matters

Frying the giblets until lightly browned. Browning builds rich, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Frying gently keeps the butter from burning and the surface from turning bitter before the giblets simmer through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, liver, butter, parsley, thyme, basil, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, liver, butter, parsley, thyme, basil, clove. 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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