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Cailles. — Quails

Roasted quails covered with bacon and vine leaves, served with a side stew of veal, herbs, bacon, butter, salt, wine, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cailles. — Quails

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Roast the quails covered with bacon and vine leaves.

  2. Stew the quails with veal, sweet herbs, bacon, butter, salt, white wine, and stock for a side dish.

  3. When done, remove the quails.

  4. Skim the liquid, then strain it.

  5. Add a little cullis.

  6. Serve the sauce over 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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Quail + vealtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + white winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders over and around the quail.
Butter
Adds richness and helps carry flavour into the braising liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich fat.
Cullis
Thickens and deepens the sauce with concentrated body and flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the liquid before straining. Fat that rises from the braising liquid makes the sauce greasy and heavy if it is not removed. Skimming first lets the strained sauce stay clean and glossy.

“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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