Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Salmis De Cailles a LA Bourguignonne
Ingredients
Directions
Roast the quails
Skewer 8 quails on a spit, cover them with bacon and mirepoix.
Roast the skewer for 30 minutes.
Remove the quails from the spit without unwrapping.
Let the quails cool.
Cut the quails in half and trim them.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine the trimmings, a bit of mirepoix, half a shallot, and truffle trimmings.
Add ½ cup red Burgundy wine and simmer gently for 45 minutes.
Strain the broth to use for the sauce.
Reduce the sauce until thickened.
Mix a few spoonfuls of the sauce with the quails to keep them warm.
Fry the croutons and serve
Prepare 12 heart-shaped croutons by frying them in clarified butter for 10 minutes before serving.
Arrange the quail halves on a serving platter, lightly sauce them, and top with croutons.
Place the remaining croutons in a crown shape around the quails and add a slice of truffle in the center.
Cover the dish with the remaining sauce.
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.
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Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,209 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Quail + shallottop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together38 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Wine + shallottop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
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Quail + truffletop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together91 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Quails
- Provide the main meat, which is cooked on the bone and then cut into halves.
- Red burgundy wine
- Adds acidity and depth of flavour as the base liquid for the sauce.
- Bacon
- Wrapped around the quails, it adds fat and savoury flavour while roasting.
- Butter
- Fries the croutons, adding fat and golden browning.
- Truffle trimmings
- Contribute a strong aroma to the sauce.
The step that matters
Reduce the sauce until thickened. Simmering the strained broth concentrates its flavour and gives it body. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while over-reducing can make it salty and sticky.
Swap the shallot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, wine, truffle, butter):
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Shallotthe original
- Potatofits about as well
- Chivefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against quail, wine, truffle, 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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