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Cailles. — Quails

Roasted quails wrapped in bacon and vine leaves, served with a wine and stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Roast the quail

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

Stew and finish the sauce

  1. Stew the quails with veal, sweet herbs, butter, salt, white wine, and stock.

  2. Remove the quails.

  3. Skim the liquid.

  4. Strain the liquid.

  5. Add a little cullis to the strained liquid.

  6. Serve 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

Quails
Form the main dish; their meat is cooked gently wrapped in bacon and leaves.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it covers the quail during roasting.
Veal
Contributes meaty body and savory depth to the stewing liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid, lightly flavoring the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stewing liquid.
Cullis
Thickens and deepens the flavor of the strained liquid used as the sauce.

The step that matters

Skim the liquid. Fat and foam rise to the surface of a stewing liquid; removing them before straining keeps the sauce clean and prevents it from tasting greasy.

“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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