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Cutlets of Quails

A braised quail dish cooked with bacon, parsley, wine mirepoix, and a rich Financière ragout.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cutlets of Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Truss the quails in the usual manner.

  2. Place them in a stewpan with layers of fat bacon underneath and on top, and a faggot of parsley in the center.

  3. Moisten with wine mirepoix and braise gently for about 45 minutes.

Make the ragout

  1. Prepare a rich Financière ragout, finishing the sauce with some of the braising liquid.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, warm the quails, drain them, and place on a serving dish.

  2. Garnish the center with the Financière ragout and pour some sauce around the quails.

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. Quail + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together153 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  3. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

  4. Quail + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Parsley + winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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 through gentle braising.
Fat bacon
Bastes the birds with fat as it renders, adding savoury flavour and moisture.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid, helping flavour penetrate the meat.
Financière ragout
Forms the rich garnish and, with the braising liquid, the sauce that coats the dish.

The step that matters

Braise gently for about 45 minutes. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the quail soften slowly without drying the lean meat. Vigorous boiling toughens the muscle fibres and makes the birds stringy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, wine, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, wine, 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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