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Oven-broiled Quails

A dish of quails roasted under a broiler, served on buttered toast with grape or cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Oven-broiled Quails

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Split the quails down the back.

  3. Wash the quails. Wipe the quails dry.

  4. Lay them flat, inside down, on a dry baking pan.

  5. Ensure the pan is very hot to broil the quails without steaming.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the quails until they are an even yellow-brown.

  2. Serve hot on slices of buttered toast with grape or cranberry jelly.

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. Butter + grapetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,028 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Grape + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Quail + grapetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 browns and cooks through under high heat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the buttered toast brown and taste savory.
Grape or cranberry jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, browned meat.
Slices of bread
Serve as a crisp base that soaks up juices from the quails.

The step that matters

Dry the quails and heat the pan well before broiling. Surface moisture and a cool pan make the birds steam instead of brown. Patting them dry and using a very hot pan lets the skin brown evenly and develop color.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, butter, bread):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Grapethe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter, bread. 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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