Summer Quail

Why would you ever settle for chicken when you can have quail, or any game bird for that matter?   Its meat is a rich burgundy hue and doesn’t taste bland.  You can cook them the same way you would a chicken, it’ll just taste way better.  Just the idea of eating it sounds more exciting than… Chicken.  

The first time I sank my teeth into California’s state bird was the same night my bike got stolen.  My work had cooked a bunch of sausage stuffed quail and I reaped the benefits that didn’t sell that night.  So during my long walk home, I chowed down on what became an eye opening experience: poultry that wasn’t boring.  It probably may have looked weird to passer-bys that I was scarffing down a tiny bird as I walked home, but it made a bad night better.  I’ve been recommending the dish ever since. 

Aside from the nostalgia of ‘the first time’, sausage stuffed quail is extremely easy and is likely to impressed anyone you have over for dinner.  Tell your guest that they’ll be eating quail and their eyes widen, eyebrows raised, and usually someone is bound to say, “Ooooo.”

You can take many approaches to this dish.  Most recently, I decided to make a very summer-themed dish.  I used pluots, since stone fruit is in season and kicking ass.  I kept it simple and cut it up in to pieces no bigger than my pinky nail.  I kept the sausage simple, by which I mean I didn’t go through the whole process of stuffing the meat into casings.  I just mixed the following ingredients a few hours in advance:

Salt, pepper, paprika, chili flakes, grapefruit zest, pomegranate molasses

I mixed those guys up with the pluots; stuffed them up the quail and popped it into the oven at 400 degrees from about 15-20 minutes.  You’ll know it’s done when the sausage reads 140 degrees.

For the side dish we did another quintessential summer dish:  

Watermelon salad with Thai basil (you can use mint too), feta cheese balsamic, vinegar, shallots and a little chili flakes.

All the places that I’ve worked sell whole quail, meaning it’s not deboned.  Most shops can get you deboned quail, which really means that the backbone and rib cage have been removed.  I personally don’t make a big fuss out of the rib cage, it’s easy to eat around, and I wind up cutting my quail in half, head-to-toe.  If you purchase a whole quail and want to have fun deboning it, check out this video.