Name: Broiled Quails and Woodcock
Ingredients: quails or woodcock; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter; slices of bread

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Quails and Woodcock

Ingredients

Directions

Clean and split the birds down the back.
Wash them carefully and dry inside and out with a clean cloth.
Chill on ice for 30 minutes.
Broil over a clear, hot fire.
Season with salt and pepper, add a piece of butter on top, and place a round of delicate toast under each bird.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together512 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Quail + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together151 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).