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Potted Quail

A preserved quail dish made by layering forcemeat and quail in a jar, baked in a water bath, then cooled and sealed with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Potted Quail

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Bone the quail carefully, ensuring to keep the meat intact.

  2. Chop the veal and bacon together into sausage meat. Season the mixture with mace, cloves, white pepper, salt, and lemon rind.

Layer in a jar

  1. Spread a thin layer of the forcemeat in a jar.

  2. Layer the quail halves on top of the forcemeat. Spread a little forcemeat on each quail half.

  3. Repeat layering until all quail halves are covered. Finish with a top layer of forcemeat.

  4. Cover with bacon slices. Cover with a crust of flour and water paste.

Bake and press

  1. Bake the jar in a water bath at 300°F (150°C) for three hours.

  2. Remove the crust. Drain excess fat and gravy.

  3. Press the meat with a plate and weight.

  4. Once cooled, cover with clarified butter. Seal tightly.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 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

Quail
Forms the main meat layers, giving the potted dish its body and bite.
Veal
Provides a mild, tender base that binds into a smooth forcemeat.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the forcemeat juicy during long, slow baking.
Mixed mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the forcemeat.
Mixed cloves
Adds strong, warm aroma that complements the rich meat.

The step that matters

Press the meat with a plate and weight. Pressing after baking packs the layers together so the potted meat slices cleanly and holds its texture. Excess fat and gravy should be drained first so the set is firm rather than greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quail, veal, mace, clove, lemon, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, veal, mace, clove, lemon, flour. 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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