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Quails, Roasted

Roasted quails wrapped in vine leaves and bacon, served with gravy, breadcrumbs, watercress, and buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Quail and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Quails, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pluck the quails and remove the head, neck, and crop, leaving the trail.

  2. Truss the quails for roasting and brush them with warm butter.

  3. Cover each breast with a vine leaf and tie a piece of bacon over the leaf.

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

Roast

  1. Roast or bake for 12 to 15 minutes, basting frequently with hot butter.

  2. Remove the skewers and strings after cooking.

  3. Decide whether to serve or remove the bacon and vine leaves.

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

Serve

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

  2. Garnish with watercress.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Watercress + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Quails
Provide the lean, delicate meat that is the main component of the dish.
Bacon
Fat over the breast that bastes the meat and keeps it moist as it roasts.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the skin while basting.
Vine leaves
Cover the breast to shield it from direct heat and help keep it moist.
Buttered toast
Soaks up the juices from the birds, adding moisture and flavour under the quail.

The step that matters

Roast for 12 to 15 minutes with frequent basting. Quail is small and lean, so it cooks quickly and can dry out or overcook. Frequent basting with hot butter adds fat and moisture to keep the meat tender while the skin browns.

“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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