Skip to main content
Main

To Roast Quail

A roasted quail stuffed with buttered bread, served with gravy and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

To Roast Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quail

  1. Carefully pick and draw the quail, leaving all the fat inside.

  2. Wash and dry the quail thoroughly.

  3. Moisten the bread with melted butter and a little water.

  4. Stuff the quail with the moistened bread, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  5. Truss the quail and secure the wings and legs with small skewers.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Roast or bake the quail for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Toast the bread on both sides without burning.

  3. Make gravy from the drippings.

  4. Soak the toast in the gravy.

Serve

  1. Arrange the soaked toast on a platter, allowing half a slice for each bird.

  2. Remove the skewers and strings.

  3. Place a quail on each half slice of toast.

  4. Drizzle with gravy.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Quail + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Quail + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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 is cooked through by roasting while staying moist.
Bread
Stuffing that absorbs butter and drippings, adding moisture and flavour to the bird and the toast.
Melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the bread stay moist and browned.

The step that matters

Roast or bake the quail for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently.. Quail is small and lean, so it can dry out or overcook quickly. Frequent basting with its fat keeps the meat moist and helps the skin brown evenly.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes