Name: Quail with Vine-leaf, Ready for Roasting
Ingredients: quail; fried croutons; watercress; oil; pepper; coarse sea salt; vinegar; brown gravy; browned bread crumbs

Why it works: Watercress and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Quail with Vine-leaf, Ready for Roasting

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the strings from the quail.
Place one quail on each fried crouton.
Wash and pick the watercress free from stalks.
Season the watercress with a little oil, pepper, salt, and a few drops of vinegar.
Arrange the watercress in small bunches between each quail and around them.
Serve with a boat of good brown gravy and some browned bread crumbs.

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.

Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Quail + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together35 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Watercress + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Watercress + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).