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Quail on Toast

A dish of cooked quail served over buttered toast with a browned flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Quail on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the quail

  1. Break down the quail breast and backbones so they lie flat.

  2. Place the quail in a pan with a little water and butter.

  3. Cover the pan tightly.

  4. Bake in a hot oven until nearly done.

  5. Heat butter in a skillet.

  6. Fry the quail until nicely browned.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast slices of baker's bread on a platter.

  2. Slightly butter the toasted slices.

  3. Break the toast into pieces with a carving knife to make it tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce with the pan gravy.

  2. Thicken the sauce lightly with browned flour.

  3. Pour the sauce over the quail and toast.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Quail + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Quail
Is the main protein, cooked until tender and browned on the outside.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the quail and toast brown.
Baker's bread
Forms the base that soaks up the pan gravy and sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce and adds a toasty, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the quail until nicely browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry surface and enough heat. Crowding the pan or leaving moisture on the quail causes steaming, which leaves it pale and less flavourful.

“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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