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Quails Roasted

Roasted quails seasoned with salt, pepper, and salt pork, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Quails Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Draw the quails and wipe them inside and out with a cloth and cold water.

  2. Truss the quails, letting the legs stand up.

  3. Tie a thin slice of salt pork or bacon around each quail.

Roast and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

  2. Baste frequently with butter and a little hot water.

  3. Serve on slices of toast and season with salt, pepper, and melted butter from the pan.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  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

Quails
The main protein, which cooks through in the hot oven and is served whole.
Thin slices of salt pork or bacon
Wrapped around the birds, its fat bastes the meat and adds savory flavor as it renders.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the skin and meat.
Slices of toast
Absorb the pan juices and drippings, giving the birds a base to sit on.

The step that matters

Baste frequently with butter and a little hot water. Quail is very lean and dries out quickly in a hot oven. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown evenly, while the water keeps the butter from scorching in the pan.

“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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