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Giblet Gravy
Giblets and neck of fowl 2 tablespoons chicken fat 2 tablespoons flour Salt and pepper Place the giblets (liver, heart and gizzard) and the neck in a saucepan, and cover them with cold water. Simmer slowly and when tender remove meat from the neck, and chop fine with the giblets, saving the water in which they were cooked. Heat the fat on top of the stove and when it is hot, stir in the flour. Cook two minutes, then add one cup of the stock left from cooking the giblets, pouring it in gradually so as not to thin the gravy too much. If the gravy seems too thick, add a little hot water. Lastly, put in the chopped giblets, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
A straightforward roux gravy built on giblet stock. The only real technique point is the order of operations: fat, flour, then liquid added gradually.
- Cook the giblets separatelyThe liver cooks far faster than the heart and gizzard and turns grainy and bitter if simmered as long. Add it for the last 10 minutes, or poach it apart and chop it in at the end. Heart and gizzard need 45 minutes to an hour to become tender.
- Quantities and yieldTwo tablespoons each of fat and flour to one cup of stock gives a medium gravy, about 1 cup finished, enough for four servings. Double it for a large roast bird and a crowd.
- Chicken fatSkim it from the roasting pan or from the top of the chilled giblet stock. Butter works, and pan drippings from the bird work better than either, but the flour must still be cooked in the fat before liquid goes in.
- "Cook two minutes"That is enough to lose the raw-flour taste and gives a pale gravy. For a browner, nuttier result cook the roux four to five minutes over medium heat, stirring, until it smells toasted.
- Adding the stockPour it in a little at a time, whisking each addition smooth before the next, as the recipe directs. Adding a full cup at once, before the flour has been dispersed, is a common cause of lumps.
- Season at the endGiblet stock reduces as it simmers and can already be quite salty if the bird was brined or pre-salted. Taste before adding any salt, and finish with plenty of black pepper.
- Straining the stockPass the cooking water through a fine sieve before using it. Neck bones shed small fragments that are easy to miss in a dark gravy.
Giblet gravy is roast-fowl economy: the neck, heart, liver and gizzard are removed before the bird goes in the oven and would otherwise be thrown out, so they are simmered into a stock while the roast cooks and returned to the table as sauce. The word giblets appears to come into English from Old French gibelet, which seems to have meant a dish of game, though the ultimate origin is uncertain; in English it narrowed to the edible offal of poultry. Its place here, among sauces for fish, meat, poultry and game, is consistent with a household cookbook expecting a cook who bought a whole bird to use every part of it.