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) · 6 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. Cut the quails open down the back, season with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour.

  2. Break the breast and back bones so they lie flat.

Cook

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the quails in a pan with a little water and butter, cover tightly, and bake until nearly done.

  3. In a skillet, heat hot butter and fry the quails until browned.

Serve on toast

  1. Toast the bread slices, butter them slightly, and place on a platter.

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

  3. Place the quail on the toast, make a sauce with the pan gravy, thicken lightly with browned flour, and pour over the quail and 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, which cooks through in the oven and browns in the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the quail brown in the skillet, and enriches the pan gravy.
Flour
Dredges the quail to help it brown and to thicken the pan gravy into a sauce.
Baker's bread
Forms the base that soaks up the quail juices and sauce.

The step that matters

Covered baking before browning. Baking covered with a little water and butter cooks the quail gently so the meat stays moist. Browning it afterward in hot butter gives color and flavor. Cooking it too long in the oven dries the meat before the browning step.

“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