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Broiled Quails

Broiled quails served on buttered toast, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Broiled Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quail

  1. Singe and draw the quails, split them lengthwise down the back, and wipe with a damp cloth.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, rub with warmed butter, and dredge with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the birds on a grill over a clear fire and broil for 10 minutes.

  2. Toast the bread slices, remove the crusts, and butter them.

  3. Place a cooked quail on each slice of toast, garnish with parsley, and 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Quail + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 cooks quickly over direct heat once split flat.
Warmed butter
Adds fat and moisture to the skin and promotes browning under heat.
Flour
Dredging coats the skin, helping it brown and crisp during broiling.
Thick slices of bread
Soak up juices and butter from the birds, serving as a base for the quail.

The step that matters

Broiling the quail over a clear fire. Quail is small and lean, so it dries out quickly. Direct, steady heat browns the flour-coated skin while keeping the meat moist, and overcooking makes it tough.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pepper, butter, flour, 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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