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Broiled Quail

Broiled quail served on toast with melted butter and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quail

  1. Singe and clean the quail, then split them open at the back without detaching the parts.

  2. Remove the two leg bones and season the quail with salt and pepper.

  3. Brush the quail with a little butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the quail over moderate coals for five minutes on each side.

  2. Prepare toast on a hot platter.

  3. Place the quail on the toast, pour over melted butter, and decorate with watercress.

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 + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Quail + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat quail
Provides the main meat, which stays moist and tender when cooked quickly over coals.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface and helps the quail brown while broiling.
Toast
Soaks up juices and butter beneath the quail, giving a base that holds the meat.

The step that matters

Broil the quail over moderate coals for five minutes on each side. Moderate heat cooks the thick breast and thigh meat through while the skin browns. Too hot and the outside burns before the center is cooked; too cool and the quail dries out slowly.

“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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