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Compote of Quails

A stew of quails cooked with bacon, veal gravy, parsley, onions, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Compote of Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails

  1. Remove the claws and empty the quails without making a large opening.

  2. Truss the quails with the legs inward.

  3. Blanch the bacon pieces to draw out the salt, then fry them in butter until light brown.

  4. Remove the bacon and stew the quails until they are light brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a roux and moisten it with veal gravy.

  2. Add parsley, green onions, small white onions, and mushrooms to the roux.

  3. Once the quails are done, remove them and let the bacon stew until thoroughly cooked.

  4. Skim the sauce and strain it over the quails.

Serve

  1. Serve the quails hot, garnished with bacon, mushrooms, and small onions.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the main meat, which is browned and then stewed until tender.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that flavours the butter and the sauce.
Veal gravy
Gives the sauce its body and rich, savoury meat flavour.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Butter
Browns the bacon and quails, adding fat and nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the quails. Searing the quails until light brown builds the flavour compounds that give the sauce depth. Undercooked or pale birds leave the compote tasting flat.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, butter, veal, parsley, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, butter, veal, parsley, 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.

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