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Quails, Roast

Roasted quails wrapped in vine leaves and bacon, served on toast with gravy, breadcrumbs, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Quail and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Quails, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck the quails and remove the head, neck, and crop, leaving the tail.

  2. Truss the quails for roasting and brush them with warm fat.

  3. Cover each breast with a vine leaf and tie a piece of bacon over the leaf.

  4. Skewer the quails on a long steel skewer through the body of each bird.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast or bake for about 15 minutes, basting frequently with hot fat.

  2. Remove the skewers and strings after cooking; the bacon and vine leaves can be served or removed.

  3. If not removed, brush the bacon with warm glaze.

  4. Serve the quails on the toast placed in a dripping tin to catch the tail.

  5. Garnish with watercress and serve gravy and breadcrumbs in sauceboats.

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. Quail + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Watercress + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the lean meat that is roasted and served as the main dish.
Bacon
Lays over the breast, adding fat that bastes the meat and flavour as it renders.
Vine leaves
Cover the breast, shielding the meat from direct heat and helping it stay moist.
Buttered toast
Forms a crisp base that soaks up juices from the roasting birds.
Butter or fat
Coats the birds, conducting heat and promoting browning and a golden surface.

The step that matters

Basting with hot fat during roasting. Quail is very lean and dries out quickly. Frequent basting with hot fat keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning as the fat transfers heat to the skin.

“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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