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Quails D LA Financiere

Braised quails with bacon, broth, wine, and a reduced sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quails D LA Financiere

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Braise the quails in a stewpan, covering them with bacon slices.

  2. Pour the broth and wine around the quails.

  3. Cover the pan and simmer gently, basting occasionally until the quails are cooked.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the broth and turn it into a sauce with caramel for color.

  2. Add the claret and reduce it by half, then strain through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the quails to the pan with the sauce and heat gently before serving.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. White wine + tarragontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Quail + chivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 becomes tender as it braises slowly in liquid.
Thin slices of fat bacon
Lay over the birds to baste them with melting fat and add savory flavor.
Good broth
Forms the braising liquid and, once reduced, the base of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid and sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and deeper wine flavor when reduced into the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and baste. Gentle simmering keeps the quail meat tender and moist; a hard boil toughens muscle fibers and dries the birds. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and flavorful.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, white wine, chervil, chive. 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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