Name: Quails with Truffles
Ingredients: 7 or 8 quails; 6 black truffles; livers of 3 or 4 chickens; rasped fat bacon; coarse sea salt; white wine; butter; brown sauce; ¼ cup madeira or sherry

Why it works: White wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Quails with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails and truffles

Singe the quails.
Remove half of their backbone.
Pick and peel the truffles.
Cut the truffles into small dice and keep covered in a small saucepan.

Make the stuffing

Fry the livers of the quails with the chicken livers and some rasped fat bacon.
Pound the livers with half of the truffle peelings.
Add an equal amount of chopped fat bacon.
Season the mixture.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Use the mixture to stuff the quails.
Sew up and truss the quails.

Braise the quails

Place the quails in a sauté pan lined with bacon and ham trimmings.
Add the remaining truffle trimmings.
Moisten with white wine.
Season lightly with salt.
Cover with buttered paper.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat with hot ashes on the lid.
Remove the thread.
Plate the quails.

Make the sauce

Strain the cooking stock.
Skim off the fat.
Add a little brown sauce.
Reduce while stirring.
Boil the diced truffles in ¼ cup of madeira or sherry for 2 minutes.
Add the boiled truffles to the sauce.
Pour the sauce 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.

White wine + sherrytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Truffle + livertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together395 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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 cooked whole and stuffed with liver and truffle.
Black truffles: Add a strong earthy aroma that flavours both the stuffing and the sauce.
Chicken livers: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the stuffing.
Fat bacon: Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the stuffing moist during cooking.
White wine: Adds acidity and moisture to the pan, helping flavour the quails as they braise.
Madeira or sherry: Adds sweetness and depth to the truffles and the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce heat with hot ashes on the lid. Gentle, even heat from above and below cooks the quails slowly and keeps them moist, while a strong boil would toughen the meat and dry the stuffing.

“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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Quails with Truffles