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Gravy for Turkey

A thickened turkey broth made with neck, heart, liver, gizzard, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turkey and liver work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 190 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Gravy for Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the turkey neck, heart, liver, gizzard, and water in a stew-pan.

  2. Boil until tender.

  3. Remove the neck.

  4. Chop the heart and gizzard.

  5. Return the chopped pieces to the stew-pan.

  6. Mash the liver.

  7. Add the mashed liver to the liquid in the stew-pan.

Finish the gravy

  1. Add the drippings from the roasting pan to the stew-pan.

  2. Skim off excess fat.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil for three minutes.

  4. Thicken with flour as needed.

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. Turkey + livertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Turkey + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together963 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Liver + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,418 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

Turkey liver
Mashed into the liquid, it adds rich, deep flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the gravy body.
Turkey drippings
Roasting-pan juices that add savoury flavour and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour as needed. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid to thicken fully and lose its raw taste. Adding it in lumps or too quickly can leave clumps, so stir it in gradually while the liquid is simmering.

“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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