Name: Breakfast Quail
Ingredients: quail; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter; water

Why it works: Quail and butter work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 512 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Breakfast 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 the quail by opening them on the back.
Place the quail in a dripping pan.
Season well with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a generous amount of butter.
Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.
Place the pan in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
Frequent turn the quail and baste with the seasoned water in the pan.
Continue basting until the quail are well done, nicely browned, and juicy.
Serve on thin slices of buttered toast.

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.

Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Quail + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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