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Quails, Boned and Stuffed, Cold

Cold, boned quails stuffed with liver forcemeat, baked, cooled, sliced, and plated with sauces, gherkin, egg, truffle, aspic, macédoine, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Quails, Boned and Stuffed, Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the quails

  1. Bone the quails without opening them by working the knife from the neck.

  2. Fill the quails with liver forcemeat using a forcing bag.

  3. Truss the birds, roll them in buttered paper, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Let the quails cool, then cut them in half.

Mask and decorate

  1. Mask the outsides with brown chaudfroid sauce and sprinkle with chopped gherkin and hard-boiled egg white.

  2. Spread the flat sides with white chaudfroid and sprinkle with sieved egg yolks, placing a bit of truffle in the center.

Assemble and serve

  1. Create a plain aspic border and arrange five halves around it in a crown shape.

  2. Fill the border with cooked macédoine of vegetables and place half a bird underneath.

  3. Mask the top with mayonnaise and garnish with the same materials used for the birds.

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 + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

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

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Quail + truffletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the main cooked meat, which is boned, stuffed, and cut into halves for presentation.
Liver forcemeat
Adds a moist, rich filling that keeps the stuffed bird tender as it cooks.
Aspic
Sets into a clear gel that holds the halves in place and gives a glossy finish.
White chaudfroid sauce
Coats the cut surfaces in a smooth, opaque layer that sets to a clean, even base for decoration.
Brown chaudfroid sauce
Coats the outside in a set, glossy layer that gives the birds a uniform colour.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a creamy coating over the top of the assembled dish.

The step that matters

Let the quails cool, then cut them in half. Cutting the birds before they are fully cool can cause the stuffing and juices to run out, leaving a messy surface for the chaudfroid coating to set on.

“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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