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Quails with Bay-Leaves, Provence Fashion

Quails stuffed with bacon, parsley, shallot, and bread crumbs, roasted and served with a wine and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Quails with Bay-Leaves, Provence Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails

  1. Draw and clean the quails.

  2. Mix the chopped bacon with parsley, pepper, shallot, bread crumbs, and half a beaten egg.

  3. Stuff the quails with the mixture and skewer them with a bay leaf between each.

Roast and make the sauce

  1. Baste the quails with lard and roast them over a brisk fire for 10 to 12 minutes.

  2. In a stewpan, melt some of the quails' fat from the dripping pan.

  3. Add the diced ham and bread crumbs, frying for a few seconds.

  4. Gradually moisten with white wine and a little gravy, allowing the sauce to bubble.

  5. Remove from heat, add lemon juice, and pour over the quails before serving.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Shallot + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy when roasted quickly.
Bacon
Melts its fat into the stuffing and quails, adding moisture and savory richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and binding it together.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together during roasting.
White wine
Deglazes the pan and adds acidity and flavor to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Roasting over a brisk fire. Quails are small and lean, so a short, hot roast cooks them through while keeping them juicy. Overcooking dries the meat and toughens it quickly.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, parsley, pepper, bread, egg, ham, white wine):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, parsley, pepper, bread, egg, ham, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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