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Eoast Quail

Baked quail wrapped in fat salt pork, served on toast with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Eoast Quail

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Wrap each quail in a slice of fat salt pork.

Bake

  1. Place the wrapped quail in a small dripping pan and add boiling water.

  2. Cover the pan tightly and bake for 15 minutes.

  3. Remove the cover and pork, then sprinkle the quail with salt and pepper.

  4. Brush the quail with butter and dredge with flour.

  5. Bake for an additional 15 minutes, basting three times.

Serve

  1. Serve the quail on toast with a cube of 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 + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Is the main meat, cooked gently so it stays moist inside the salt pork wrap.
Fat salt pork
Bastes the birds as it renders, adding fat and savory flavor to the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and helps the quail brown and develop color in the oven.
Flour
Dredged on the quail, it helps the surface brown and form a slightly crisp coating.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that contrast with the rich, salty pork and birds.

The step that matters

Covering the pan for the first 15 minutes. Steam from the boiling water and the tight cover gently cook the quail through while keeping them moist. Removing the cover too early can dry the birds before the surface is set and browned.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pork, pepper, butter, flour. 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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