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Quails, with Stewed Peas

A dish of boiled quails served with stewed peas and a sauce of wine mirepoix and Espagnole.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,885 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Quails, with Stewed Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the quails

  1. Truss the quails like chickens for boiling.

  2. Place the quails in a stewpan with the bacon and parsley.

  3. Cover the quails with thin layers of bacon.

  4. Moisten the bacon layers with wine mirepoix.

  5. Braise the quails gently for about 45 minutes.

Prepare the peas

  1. Prepare the stewed peas.

  2. Reduce a little wine mirepoix to a glaze and finish the peas with it.

Plate and serve

  1. Arrange the quails in a circle with their breasts facing outwards.

  2. Fill the center of the circle with the stewed peas.

  3. Place a piece of bacon between each quail.

  4. Pour Espagnole sauce around and over the dish.

  5. Serve.

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 + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Wine + peastop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Quail + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Quail + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together153 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 is braised gently until tender.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders over the quails and bastes them.
Wine mirepoix
Moistens the bacon and quails and reduces to a glaze that flavours the peas.
Stewed peas
Provide a soft, moist vegetable base that sets off the quails.

The step that matters

Braise the quails gently for about 45 minutes. Gentle heat over a long time breaks down connective tissue and keeps the meat moist. Boiling or a fast simmer toughens the proteins and dries the birds out.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, parsley, wine, sauce. 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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