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Broiled Quail

A roasted quail served on buttered toast with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quail and butter work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Broiled Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the quail at the back.

Broil

  1. Broil over a hot fire, basting often with butter.

  2. When done, add a little more butter and season.

  3. Place in the oven for a moment.

Serve

  1. Serve on thin slices of buttered toast with currant 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. Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Quail + curranttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Quail
The main protein, split so it cooks evenly over high heat.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and browns on the surface while basting.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity to balance the rich, buttery meat.

The step that matters

Broil over a hot fire, basting often with butter. Quail is small and lean, so it dries out quickly under high heat. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist while it browns.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter. 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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