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Quails, Boned and Stuffed, Cold

Cold quails boned, stuffed with liver forcemeat, baked, then cooled and glazed with sauces and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, Boned and Stuffed, Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the quails

  1. Bone the quails without opening them by working the knife from the neck.

  2. Fill the quails with liver forcemeat using a forcing bag.

  3. Truss the quails and roll them in buttered paper.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake on a buttered tin in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until cooked.

  2. Let the quails cool, then cut them in half.

Mask and decorate

  1. Mask the outsides with brown chaudfroid sauce and sprinkle with chopped gherkin and hard-boiled egg white.

  2. Spread the flat sides with white chaudfroid and sprinkle with sieved egg yolks.

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 + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together57 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 meat, which is boned, stuffed, cooked and then cut for serving.
Liver forcemeat
Adds a rich, moist, savoury filling that stays soft as the quail cooks.
Brown chaudfroid sauce
Coats the outside with a set, glossy layer that holds the garnish in place.
White chaudfroid sauce
Forms a smooth, opaque, set coating on the cut surfaces for a clean finish.

The step that matters

Bake until just cooked. Quail is small and lean, so overbaking dries the meat and makes the stuffing firm. Pull it from the oven once cooked, since residual heat continues to cook it while it cools.

“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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