Name: Bkoiled Quail
Ingredients: quail; coarse sea salt; butter; thin toast; currant jelly

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 ↓

Bkoiled Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Dress the quail carefully and soak briefly in saltwater.
Split the quail down the back and dry with a cloth.
Rub the quail with butter and place on a grill over a clear fire.
Turn frequently and dip in melted butter.
Season with salt.
Prepare a slice of thin toast, butter it, and place on a hot dish.
Lay a quail breast side up on each slice of toast.
Garnish with currant jelly.

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).
Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Quail + curranttop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together64 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).