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To Roast Quails

Roasted quails stuffed with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and butter, wrapped in salt pork and served on buttered toast.

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 ↓

To Roast Quails

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Clean the quails thoroughly and stuff them with bread crumbs, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and melted butter if desired.

  2. Tie thin slices of fat salt pork over the breast of each quail.

Roast

  1. Place the quails in a baking pan and set in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Baste with melted butter initially, then with the drippings from the pan.

  3. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes.

  4. Fifteen minutes before they are done, place a small square of buttered toast under each bird to catch the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the quail on the toast on a hot platter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 cooks through in a short, hot roast.
Thin slices of fat salt pork
Lay over the breast to baste the lean meat with melting fat as it roasts.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown as it is basted over the birds.
Bread crumbs
Fill the cavity to add a soft stuffing that absorbs juices and flavour.
Buttered toast
Soaks up the pan drippings and gravy that fall beneath the birds.

The step that matters

Timing the toast placement. Placing the toast fifteen minutes before the birds finish lets it absorb drippings without going soggy or burning, while the quail browns in the oven's dry heat.

“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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