Why it works: Quail and butter work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 512 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Soak lentils for a few hours.
Cook quail in salted water until tender.
Drain quail and reserve the liquid.
Cook lentils until tender.
Pass lentils through a sieve or puree in a blender.
Make the soup
Heat butter in a pan.
Sauté ham and celeriac in the butter.
Add a little flour and brown while stirring constantly.
Dilute the mixture with half of the quail stock.
Bring to a boil for a few minutes.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Mix the strained stock with the pureed lentils.
Add the other half of the quail stock and simmer covered for 30 minutes.
Add quail to the pot.
Serve
Serve with croutons.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
-
Quail + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together512 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
-
Lentils + flourtop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together248 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Ham + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
-
Quail + hamtop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together42 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Lentils
- Provide the main body and thickness once pureed into the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as it browns in the butter, adding color and a nutty flavor.
- Butter
- Carries the flavor of the aromatics and helps the flour brown.
- Celeriac
- Adds earthy, sweet aromatic flavor to the soup base.
- Ham or bacon
- Adds savory fat and smoky, salty depth to the soup.
- Quail
- Provides the meat and, through its cooking liquid, the stock that flavors the soup.
The step that matters
Browning the flour while stirring constantly. Flour cooked in fat must be stirred constantly so it browns evenly without scorching or forming lumps. Browned flour thickens the soup more evenly and adds a deeper, nutty flavor.
“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.
You might also like
Illustration
Illustration
Illustration
IllustrationThe Sunday pairing: one pairing, the chemistry behind it, and how to cook it. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account for sign-in; Pro adds the full results and chemistry.