Timbale de Cailles Alexandra

Timbale de Cailles Alexandra (quails baked with foie gras and truffles inside a pastry mould) teaches that structure and supper are not always the same thing. The paste is a mould, not a meal. Its bacon lining must be complete, because that thin wall of fat keeps the quails' liquor from soaking the paste and bringing the whole architecture down. Know that before you touch a pan.

The original recipe assumed a deep metal timbale mould, a saucier who could reach for excellent stock enriched with Madeira, and enough birds to build successive tiers. At home, a 1.25-litre straight-sided pudding basin replaces the timbale mould; concentrated unsalted poultry stock and Madeira replace the stockpot never off the fire; four quails make one generous ring for four people. The liquor is scaled exactly from the book's quarter pint for six birds to 95 ml for four. Successive tiers are brigade scaffolding and can go. The foie gras inside each bird, the truffle-filled centre, the bacon barrier, and the full hour and a quarter in the oven are the dish, so they stay.

One cook, one stove, one evening. When the timbale is turned out, its plain golden shell opens onto bronzed bacon, tender quail, black truffles, and Madeira-rich juices. Patch every crack you find, but give your greatest attention to the overlapping bacon: no pinholes and no hopeful gaps. That lining decides the dish.