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Quails, Compote of

Quails stewed with bacon, mushrooms, onions, and parsley in a veal gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Quails, Compote of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the quails by cutting off the claws and emptying them without making a large opening.

  2. Truss the legs inward.

  3. Blanch the bacon pieces to remove excess salt.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Fry the bacon pieces in butter until light brown, then remove the bacon from the pan.

  2. Stew the quails in the same pan until they are light brown, then remove the quails from the pan.

  3. Make a roux.

  4. Moisten the roux with a ladleful of veal gravy.

  5. Add parsley, green onions, small white onions (if using), and mushrooms.

  6. Once the quails are done, remove them from the pan.

  7. Let the bacon stew until fully cooked.

  8. Skim the sauce well.

  9. Strain the sauce over the quails.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with the bacon, mushrooms, and small onions.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 is browned and then gently stewed in the sauce.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that browns in the pan and flavours the sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning of the bacon and quails and adds richness.
Veal gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury body and depth.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the quails before stewing. Searing the quails in butter until light brown builds browned, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce pale and flat-tasting.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, butter, veal, parsley, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter, veal, parsley, mushroom. 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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