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Cutlets of Quails or of Pigeons

Cutlets of quail or pigeon breasts, seasoned with pepper and salt, coated in butter and flour or cracker crumbs, fried and served with green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Quail and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 308 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cutlets of Quails or of Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Carefully cut the breasts from the quails or pigeons.

  2. Insert a small bone from the leg into the small end of each breast.

  3. Sprinkle pepper and coarse sea salt over each breast.

  4. Dip each breast in melted butter.

  5. Roll each breast in flour or cracker crumbs.

  6. Set the cutlets aside until ready to cook.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in a sauté pan with hot butter.

  2. Serve the cutlets in a circle with a center of green peas.

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. Quail + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together308 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Quails or pigeons
Provide the tender breast meat that forms the cutlets.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the coating brown when fried.
Flour or sifted cracker-crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns and protects the meat during frying.
Green peas
Add sweetness and color as the centerpiece of the serving.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in hot butter. The pan must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly. Too little heat lets the crumb coating soak up butter and turn greasy, while the lean meat dries out if overcooked.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, pepper, butter, flour, pork, onion):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pepper, butter, flour, pork, onion. 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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