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Broilkd Quails

Quails are seasoned, coated, broiled, and served on toasted buttered bread with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broilkd Quails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quails

  1. Singe and draw the quails, then split them lengthwise down the back and wipe with a damp cloth.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, rub with warm butter, and dredge with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the quails on a grill over a clear fire and broil for ten minutes.

  2. Cut the bread into thick slices, remove the crusts, toast and butter them, and lay on a hot dish.

  3. Place a cooked quail on each slice of bread, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Quail + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the main protein, cooking through over direct heat while the skin crisps.
Warm butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown evenly under the heat.
Flour
Dredged on the surface to help the skin brown and crisp.
Thick slices of bread
Serves as a toasted, buttered base that soaks up the juices.

The step that matters

Broiling the quails over a clear fire. Quail is small and lean, so it can dry out quickly. A clear, steady fire and close attention keep the meat juicy while the outside browns.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, pepper, butter, flour, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, pepper, butter, flour, bread. 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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