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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
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Why it works: Quail and liver work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 57 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-hexanol, which smells resin, flower. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: flour

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Quail + livertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

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

  3. Red currant + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,578 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,805 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.

Flavor stand-ins for the red currant

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

  1. Grapebetter flavor fit
  2. Lemonabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Red currantthe original
  4. Appleabout as good a flavor fit

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. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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