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Quails a LA Lucullees

Stuffed quails served with a liver and truffle mixture and a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Quails a LA Lucullees

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. In a sauté pan, cook the chopped bacon for a few minutes.

  2. Add the livers, shallot, peppercorns, cloves, and bouquet garni; cook carefully.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Stir in the chopped truffles.

Stuff and bake the quail

  1. Stuff each quail with the mixture and shape them.

  2. Butter or oil some paper cases for the quails.

  3. Place the quails in the cases.

  4. Drizzle with salad oil.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the quail bones in a saucepan.

  2. Add the glaze and brown sauce.

  3. Bring to a boil.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Quail + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the meat that is stuffed, shaped and baked as the main component.
Livers
Give the stuffing a rich, soft texture and savoury depth.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, salty flavour to the stuffing as it cooks.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma that defines the dish.
Brown sauce
Supplies a rich, savoury body to the finishing sauce.

The step that matters

Pound and sieve the liver mixture. Pounding and passing the cooked livers through a fine sieve makes a smooth, even stuffing. Lumps or coarse pieces can leave the stuffing grainy and uneven in the quail.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, liver, shallot, pepper, truffle, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, liver, shallot, pepper, truffle, sauce. 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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