Skip to main content
Main

Quail on Toast

A roasted quail served on toasted bread with a pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Quail on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the quail

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the quails open down the back.

  3. Season the quails with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Dredge the quails with flour.

  5. Break the breast and back bones so the quails lie flat.

Bake and fry

  1. Place the quails in a pan with a little water and 1 tablespoon butter.

  2. Cover the pan tightly and bake until nearly done.

  3. Heat butter in a skillet.

  4. Fry the quails in the skillet until nicely browned.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast the bread slices.

  2. Lightly butter the toasted bread slices.

  3. Break the toast into pieces with a carving knife to make it tender.

  4. Place the quails on the toast.

  5. Make a sauce with the pan gravy, thickening it lightly with browned flour.

  6. Pour the sauce over each quail and the toast.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Quail + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Quails
Provide the main meat; frying after baking gives browned, crisp skin over tender flesh.
Flour
Dredging coats the quail, helping it brown and thickening the pan gravy for the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and richness, helping the quail brown and giving flavour to the toast.
Bread
Forms the base that soaks up the juices and sauce beneath the quail.

The step that matters

Frying until nicely browned. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry surface and enough heat. Crowding the skillet or leaving the quail wet makes it steam instead, so it turns pale and soft rather than golden.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes