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Pate of Quails, Pigeons, Labks

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pate of Quails, Pigeons, Labks

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pluck and truss the quails, pigeons, and larks.

  2. Fill them with good forcemeat.

  3. Layer forcemeat around the pâté and at the bottom.

  4. Season the birds with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and add blanched veal slices.

  5. Bake for three hours.

  6. Open the pâté and pour in seasoned poultry stock and a little white wine.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Quail + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Nutmeg + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, pepper, veal, white wine):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pepper, veal, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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