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Galantines of Quail

Quail stuffed with sheep's tongue, bacon, liver, and spices, then stewed in gravy and glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Galantines of Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Trim the cold sheep's tongues and cut eight fillets the size of a walnut from the center.

  2. Place the boned quails, breast down, on a board and dust with spiced pepper.

  3. Melt the bacon in a frying pan, then add the lamb's liver, diced quail meat, and onion; cook until done.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a mortar, add the remaining sheep's tongues, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; work into a paste and sieve.

  5. Mix in parsley, spiced pepper, lime peel, and truffles; spread a layer over each quail.

  6. Place a tongue fillet in the center of each quail and spread another layer of forcemeat on top.

Cook and glaze

  1. Shape the birds neatly and sew the skin together securely.

  2. Stew the quails in gravy with red currant jelly, sherry, and vinegar until cooked.

  3. Lift out the quails, drain the gravy, and reduce it to a glaze.

  4. Once cooled, paint the galantines with the glaze and arrange on a dish set on ice.

  5. Garnish with parsley and lime slices.

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. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Quail + lambtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Parsley + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's tongues
Provide the firm, tender meat fillets at the center of each galantine.
Quails
Form the outer shell that is stuffed, shaped, and stewed into the galantines.
Lamb's liver
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat filling.
Bacon fat
Carries flavor and keeps the forcemeat moist during cooking.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, helping form the glaze.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth to the stewing liquid and glaze.

The step that matters

Reducing the gravy to a glaze. If the stewing liquid is reduced too little it stays thin and won't coat the cooled galantines; if reduced too far it turns sticky and salty. Watching the thickness keeps the glaze smooth and glossy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, lamb, liver, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lime):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, lamb, liver, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lime. 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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