Skip to main content
Main

Salmis of Quails

Stuffed quails roasted with bacon, then simmered in a rich Madeira gravy with livers, mushrooms, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Salmis of Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails

  1. Clean the quails.

  2. Place a roll of boiled bacon inside each bird.

  3. Sew up the vents.

  4. Truss the birds for roasting.

Brown and stew

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan.

  2. Brown the quails.

  3. Transfer the quails to a stew pan.

  4. Cover with rich gravy.

  5. Stew the quails until cooked through.

  6. Remove the quails.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  2. Add caramel for color to the gravy.

  3. Add Madeira to the gravy.

  4. Add pounded livers to the gravy.

  5. Add red currant jelly to the gravy.

  6. Add chili vinegar to the gravy.

  7. Add minced mushrooms to the gravy.

  8. Heat the quails in the sauce.

  9. Serve hot with dry 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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Red currant + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Red currant + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
The main protein, cooked whole so the bacon and sauce flavor the meat.
Boiled bacon
Adds salty, smoky flavor and fat that bastes the bird from inside as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the quails and thicken the gravy.
Madeira
Adds sweet, fortified wine flavor and depth to the sauce.
Livers of the quails
Pounded into the gravy to add body and a rich, savory flavor.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the quails in the sauce. Once the quails are cooked through, reheating them gently keeps the meat tender and juicy. Boiling the sauce can toughen the meat and make the gravy break or taste harsh.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, butter, liver, vinegar, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter, liver, vinegar, mushroom, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes