Skip to main content
Main

To Cook Quail

A quail dish simmered in Burgundy wine with oysters, mushrooms, and espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Cook Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Cut the quail in half and season with onion juice and salt.

  2. Brown the quail, then add the Burgundy wine and simmer for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the espagnole sauce, oysters, and mushrooms, being careful not to overcook the oysters.

  2. Season with salt, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper, then serve hot.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Quail
Provides the main meat, which browns and becomes tender as it simmers in the wine.
Burgundy wine
Adds acidity and depth, and gently cooks the quail in its liquid.
Espagnole sauce
Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a rich, savory body.
Oysters
Add a briny, delicate flavor and soft texture when cooked only briefly.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the oysters without overcooking them. Oysters toughen and shrink quickly when overheated, so they should be added near the end and cooked only until they firm slightly and warm through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, onion, wine, sauce, oyster, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Grapefits about as well
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, onion, wine, sauce, oyster, mushroom, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipes