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Quails a LA Crapaudine

A French-style roasted quail served with Italian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Quails a LA Crapaudine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Singe the quails.

  2. Draw the quails.

  3. Remove the claws.

  4. Truss the quails with their legs inwards.

  5. Pinch the breast.

  6. Scallop the breast without cutting through the skin.

  7. Beat the birds flat.

Coat the birds

  1. Dust the birds with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the quails twice in clarified butter and breadcrumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil over a clear fire until cooked through.

  2. Serve with Italian sauce.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 lean meat, which sets the texture and cooking time of the dish.
Clarified butter
Carries heat into the coating and adds richness and golden browning.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the surface of the birds.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire until cooked through. Quail is small and lean, so it can dry out quickly if overcooked, while the thick breast and legs may still be underdone if the heat is too fierce. Watch the birds closely and test that the meat is cooked through.

“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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