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Quails Roasted

Roasted quail served with a bread sauce made from milk, onions, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Quails Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the quail

  1. Cover the quail breasts with thin slices of bacon or rub them with butter.

  2. Roast the quails over a good fire, basting often with butter.

  3. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until done, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve immediately on a hot dish.

Make the bread sauce

  1. Roll 1 pint of dry bread crumbs and sift half of them.

  2. Boil 1 pint of milk with a small onion, then remove the onion.

  3. Thicken the milk with the sifted crumbs, then stir in 2 teaspoons of butter, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

Brown the crumbs and serve

  1. In a sauté pan, heat a little butter and add the remaining coarser crumbs.

  2. Stir until they turn light brown, adding a pinch of Cayenne pepper.

  3. Serve the roast quail with a tablespoon of white sauce and a tablespoon of crumbs on top.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Main protein, cooked over a hot fire until done.
Bacon or butter
Covers the breasts, adding fat that keeps the meat moist and browns the surface.
Dry bread crumbs
Thicken the milk into the sauce and, browned in butter, add a toasted topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the bread sauce, which the crumbs thicken.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and basting fat for even browning.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the sifted crumbs. Bread crumbs absorb liquid and swell as they cook, so adding them gradually and keeping the sauce moving prevents lumps and sets a smooth, even consistency.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, butter, pepper, bread, milk, nutmeg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter, pepper, bread, milk, nutmeg. 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.

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