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Ptarmigans, Roast

Roasted ptarmigan served on buttered toast with gravy, breadcrumbs, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ptarmigans, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck the quails.

  2. Remove the head, neck, and crop.

  3. Leave the trail.

  4. Truss the quails for roasting.

  5. Brush the quails with warm fat.

  6. Cover each breast with a vine leaf.

  7. Tie a piece of bacon over the leaf.

  8. Skewer the birds with a long steel skewer through the body of each bird.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast or bake for about 15 minutes, basting frequently with hot fat.

  2. Remove the skewers and strings before serving.

  3. Leave the bacon and vine leaves on or remove them.

  4. If the bacon is not removed, brush it with warm glaze.

  5. Serve the quails on the buttered toast placed in a dripping tin to catch the juices.

  6. Garnish with watercress.

  7. Serve the gravy and breadcrumbs in sauceboats.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Quail + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

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

  3. Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Quail + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the lean meat that is roasted whole and carved for serving.
Bacon
Adds fat that bastes the breast meat and keeps it moist during roasting.
Vine leaves
Cover the breast and shield it from direct heat, helping keep it moist.
Buttered toast
Soaks up the juices dripping from the birds, adding richness and flavour.
Good brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the dry-roasted birds.

The step that matters

Roast or bake for about 15 minutes, basting frequently with hot fat.. Small birds cook quickly and dry out easily. Frequent basting with hot fat keeps the surface moist and promotes even browning.

“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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