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Fried Quail or Squabs

Fried quail or squabs coated in flour and cooked slowly in lard or salt pork, served with a flour‑milk gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Quail and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 308 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fried Quail or Squabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Dress the quail or squabs.

  2. Split the quail or squabs down the back.

  3. Wash the quail or squabs and drain them well.

  4. Coat the birds in flour.

Fry

  1. Place them in a frying pan with plenty of hot lard or finely cut salt pork.

  2. Cover the pan tightly.

  3. Fry the birds slowly.

  4. Add a little hot water at a time to keep moist.

  5. Season the birds with salt and pepper.

  6. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes depending on the age of the birds.

Make the gravy

  1. Use some of the grease left in the pan.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of flour to the grease and rub until smooth.

  3. Gradually add enough milk to achieve the desired gravy consistency.

  4. Season the gravy to taste.

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. Quail + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Quail or squabs
Provide the meat that is fried until tender and cooked through.
Flour
Coats the birds to help form a browned crust when fried.
Hot lard or finely cut salt pork
Fat that fries the birds and adds rich flavour and browning.
Milk
Liquid that thickens with the flour and grease to form the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the birds slowly under a tightly covered lid. Slow frying over gentle heat, covered, cooks the birds through and keeps the meat moist, while the flour coating browns gradually instead of burning. Adding hot water a little at a time helps prevent the birds from drying out.

“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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