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Couplets of Quail Ok Pigeons

Small cutlets of quail or pigeon served with green peas, livers, and a sauce made from a roux and stock.

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 ↓

Couplets of Quail Ok Pigeons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

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

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

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

  4. Dip the breasts in melted butter, then roll in flour or cracker crumbs.

  5. Set the cutlets aside until ready to cook.

Make the sauce and liver topping

  1. Simmer carcasses in cold water with small pieces of salt pork and onion for flavor.

  2. Strain the mixture, thicken with browned roux, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Mash the cooked livers and moisten with some of the sauce.

  4. Prepare thin pieces of toast, butter them, and spread with the mashed livers.

Cook and serve

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

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

  3. Turn the cutlets in the sauce and serve on the toast with remaining sauce for dipping.

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.
Flour or sifted cracker crumbs
Form a coating that browns during frying and helps hold the cutlet together.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the coating brown when the cutlets are fried.
Browned roux
Thickens the strained stock into a sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and depth to the stock used for the sauce.
Toast
Gives a crisp base that holds the mashed liver topping.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets just before serving. Breaded meat cooks quickly and can dry out or lose its crisp coating if held too long. Frying in hot butter sets the coating and keeps the lean breast moist inside.

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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