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Broiled Quail

A roasted quail served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Broiled Quail

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quail

  1. Carefully pick each quail and cut it open down the back.

  2. Pound the quail slightly with a meat mallet to break the bones so they lie flat.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the quail until nicely browned.

  2. Prepare a pan of melted butter to dip each quail in after cooking.

  3. Toast slices of bread until light brown and butter them well.

  4. Place a quail on each slice of toast and pour the melted butter over them.

  5. Serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Quail
Provides the main protein; splitting and flattening it helps it cook evenly and brown quickly under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and its milk solids help the browned surface taste savoury.
Slices of bread
Acts as a crisp base that soaks up the melted butter and the juices from the quail.

The step that matters

Broil the quail until nicely browned. Broiling is intense and fast, so the quail can scorch on the outside before the meat is cooked through. Watching the colour and turning the bird as needed keeps browning even and the meat juicy.

“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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