Why it works: Quail and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 308 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Cailles Roties
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the birds
Clean, draw, and truss the quails neatly.
Tie a piece of fat pork over the breast of each bird.
Bake and serve
Place the birds in a baking pan with 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of boiling water.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently with hot butter from the pan.
Prepare a piece of toast for each bird, removing the crust and moistening with boiling broth and butter.
Remove the pork from the birds, place them on the toast, and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Garnish with cresses and serve with a salad.
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.
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Quail + porktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together308 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Quail + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together512 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Quail + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together391 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
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, cooked whole and trussed so it roasts evenly.
- Fat pork
- Tied over the breast to baste the bird with melting fat, keeping the lean meat moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavour, and browns as it is spooned over the birds while baking.
- Toast
- Soaks up broth and butter, giving a moist base that the birds rest on.
The step that matters
Basting the birds while they bake. Spooning hot butter over the birds keeps the lean quail meat from drying out and helps the skin brown. Baking time is short, so the birds can overcook quickly.
“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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