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Quails, Stuffed

Quails stuffed with liver farce, ham, truffle, and served with Madeira sauce and vegetable garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Quails, Stuffed

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the quail

  1. Bone the quails.

  2. Stuff the quails with liver farce.

  3. Shape the quails.

  4. Wrap each quail in a band of buttered paper.

  5. Heat the butter in a sauté pan.

  6. Baste the quails.

  7. Roast the quails at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently.

Wrap in caul

  1. Wash the caul in salt water.

  2. Dry the caul.

  3. Cut the caul into pieces large enough to wrap half a bird.

  4. Split the quails in half with a hot, wet knife.

  5. Wrap each half in caul.

  6. Brush each half with egg white.

  7. Sprinkle one half with ham.

  8. Sprinkle the other half with truffle.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the butter in the sauté pan.

  2. Return the quails to the pan.

  3. Cover the quails with buttered paper.

  4. Cook gently in the oven for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve on a potato border, alternating colors.

  6. Fill the center with asparagus, peas, flageolets, or spinach puree.

  7. Pour hot Madeira sauce around the dish.

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. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Truffle + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  4. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Truffle + hamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the main lean meat, which cooks quickly and needs gentle heat to stay tender.
Liver farce
Adds moisture and richness to the lean quail meat as it cooks.
Butter
Carries heat through the pan and adds fat for moisture and browning.
Pork caul
Wraps the birds, basting them with its fat and holding their shape.
Egg white
Binds the caul to the quail so it holds together while cooking.
Truffle
Contributes a strong earthy aroma to one half of each bird.

The step that matters

Split the quails in half with a hot, wet knife.. A hot, wet blade cuts cleanly through the bird without dragging or crushing the meat, keeping the stuffing and the halves neatly presented.

“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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