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 ↓
Roasted Quail
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place a slice of fat pork over the breast of each quail.
Roast
In a baking pan, combine the quails with butter and boiling water.
Roast in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently with hot butter.
Serve
Moisten the toast with boiling broth and butter.
Remove the pork from the quails and place them on the toast.
Season with salt and 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, which is roasted until cooked through.
- Fat pork
- Bastes the breast meat with melting fat, keeping it moist during roasting.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavour, and browns the quails when basted over them.
- Toast
- Soaks up the broth and butter, serving as a moist base under the quails.
The step that matters
Roast in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, basting frequently with hot butter. Quail is small and lean, so it dries out quickly. Frequent basting with hot butter keeps the meat moist and helps the skin brown evenly, while the pork slice adds extra fat over the breast.
“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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