Never fail quail recipes

by Ann Oliver
Hunter 1

Small birds have been so popular throughout history that it is always a surprise to cooks that parrots and budgies have not become common table fare in Australia. As well as conservation, perhaps it is their association as domestic animals that has saved them from our plates.

Roman and Renaissance dinners boast such amazing dishes as an entire wild boar, spit roasted, its belly filled with half-frozen live birds. When the belly was split open the birds, warmed by the heat of the animal, flew into the heights of the dining halls. Historically, one can find recipes for small birds from sparrows, to starlings, to larks.

Remember the old nursery rhyme, ‘four and twenty black birds baked in a pie…’ Our abundance of things to eat probably has had as much to do with stopping these birds being eaten as anything else; the idea of sparrow pie for instance has none of the appeal of barbecue quail. Watching quails hatch, long-suffering parents could only wish humans were blessed with such exceptional skills from birth. They come from the shell equipped to take on adult life and assume that independent role immediately.

Quail are well suited to a slow barbecue: they cook easily and their skin caramelises perfectly. Certainly you can find quail in the menus of the world’s best restaurants, boned, stuffed with foie gras and wrapped in mouth-melting flaky puff pastry, with a sauce studded black with truffle. A good tip with quail is to brown them, then let them rest for a few minutes in a warm place to finish cooking. Cooking small birds in a pan is pretty hard work and not all that successful, so if you don’t have a barbecue, roast them in the oven on a rack in a roasting pan.

The following is a set of marinades for barbecue quail. Try doing two different marinades, an Asian salad and some plain rice for an excellent combination. Split the quail in half along the back and breastbone. Regardless of the marinade, a few lemon wedges always seem to bring out the last of the flavours. All of the following marinade recipes are sufficient for 18 quail.

Allowing three per person for a meal usually evens out, and they are just as good the next day so leftovers need not go to waste.

 

Simple marinade - keeps well

• 125ml peanut oil
• 100ml Chinese cooking wine
• 100ml Chinese black vinegar
• 100g palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 50g green ginger - peeled and grated
• 2 cloves of garlic - peeled
• 1 bunch of coriander - well washed and roots discarded

Put everything into a blender and purée. Let the quail marinate for at least 24 hours.

 

Chilli quail marinade
This is a recipe based on Charmaine Solomon’s Fried Chilli Crabs from her excellent book The Complete Asian Cookbook

• 125ml peanut oil
• 75g ginger - peeled and grated
• 76g garlic
• 6-7 small red chillies - finely chopped
• 300g home-style tomato sauce
• 300ml Lingham’s sweet chilli sauce - available from all Chinese grocers
• 50g sugar - optional
• 50ml light soy

Put everything into a blender and purée. Use two-thirds of the purée to marinade the quail and serve the remainder poured over the cooked quail.

 

Green curry marinade

• 3 cloves of garlic - peeled
• 3 chillies - finely chopped
• 50g green ginger - peeled and chopped
• 1 bunch of coriander - washed well, dried off a bit and stalks removed
• 1 bunch of basil (sacred if you can get it) - washed and leafed
• 1 bunch of mint - washed and leafed
• 1 x 300ml coconut cream/milk
• 50ml light soy
• 75ml fresh squeezed lemon juice

Put everything into the bender and purée. Keep refrigerated.

 

Thai marinade

• 13 fresh Kaffir lime leaves - very finely chopped
• 6 small hot chillies - very finely chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic - peeled and very finely chopped
• 8 stems of lemon grass - peeled back to very soft part and very finely chopped
• 500ml Thai fish sauce - (get Phu Quoc brand if you can)
• 100ml mirin
• 200ml strained fresh lime juice

Put the lime leaves, chillies, garlic and lemon grass on your chopping board and chop until they are very fine. Combine with the liquids and keep in a sealed bottle. The marinade keeps indefinitely. Make sure you shake it well and spoon it onto the quail to marinate them.

 

Black vinegar marinade

• 250ml ABC brand Ketyap Manis
• 250ml Chinese black vinegar
• 125m peanut oil
• 50g green ginger - peeled and chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic - peeled
• 50g palm sugar or brown sugar

Put everything into the bender and purée. Keep refrigerated; marinate quail for at least 24 hours. Hard-boiled quail eggs are excellent put into this marinade.

 

European marinade

This marinade can be found right along the Mediterranean coast, varying slightly. For instance, in Spain the lemon juice becomes orange; in the Middle East, the fresh lemon rind becomes pickled lemon rind, and coriander and dill are added at the last minute rather than in the marinade. In Italy the rosemary will change to oregano.

Basically, it is the zest of a couple of lemons, one-third lemon juice and two-thirds olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and rosemary. If you don’t have a lemon, use some wine or a mixture of wine and vinegar, it will still taste great.

 

Emergency marinade

• 1 jar of barbecue sauce - roughly 275ml
• 1 jar of hoisin sauce
• 100ml Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry (roughly 1/3 of jar)
• 1 bunch of spring onions - cleaned and finely chopped

Mix everything together in a bowl, add quail, cover and refrigerate for at least six hours before cooking. Serve with plain rice and plenty of finely chopped spring onions.

 

Salad accompaniment

• 1 bunch of mint - washed and leafed
• 1 bunch of sacred basil - washed and leafed
• 1 bunch of coriander - washed and roots removed
• 1 bunch of spring onions - cleaned and finely shredded
• 500g soya bean shoots

Put everything into a bowl with ice and lots of water. Allow the onion to curl then drain everything well and keep in a colander inside a bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. This can be done the day before.