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Quails, a LA Royale

Quails stuffed with force-meat, braised with carrot, onion, cloves, and parsley, then fried and coated in bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Quails, a LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails

  1. Stuff the quails with the quenelle force-meat and truss them.

  2. Place the quails in a stewpan with sliced carrot, onion, cloves, and parsley.

Braise and cool

  1. Moisten with white broth, cover with buttered paper, and braise gently for 45 minutes.

  2. Allow the quails to cool in their own liquid, then remove and place on a dish to cool completely.

Coat and fry

  1. Remove the strings and coat the quails with coulis sauce, then let it set.

  2. Roll the quails in bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and coat with bread crumbs again.

  3. Fry the quails in hot hog's lard until light brown, then drain and serve on a border of quenelle force-meat.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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 becomes tender during gentle braising.
Quenelle force-meat
Stuffs the birds and forms a border that holds the finished dish together.
White broth
Moistens the quails during braising, keeping the meat from drying out.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere evenly to the quails.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot lard.

The step that matters

Frying the breaded quails. Frying in hot lard until only light brown sets a crisp crust quickly, while the meat inside stays moist. Overheating or overfrying browns the crumbs too far and can dry the birds.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, meat, carrot, onion, parsley, sauce, bread):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, meat, carrot, onion, parsley, sauce, bread. 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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