Category Archives: Quail – Recipes
Quail Giblet Risotto (works for chicken giblets too)
We are used to this dish made with chicken giblets, but, as you know we also have quail! I make stock with the quail bones, and this risotto, every time when I have to cull. Risotto involves standing and stirring the pot all the time – no answering the phone, getting the door or visiting the bathroom! 😉 The consistency of the dish must be just right, not too wet, not too dry and al dente. It takes some work but is worth the trouble. My smallest grandchild is particularly fond of this dish, to the point where his grandmother once told me to stop shoveling it in after the 3 rd bowl – she was afraid he may pop.
Quail Risotto
2 liters of good chicken or quail stock stock. I make my own, it is simple and easy and makes all the difference to the taste
2 cups of Arborio or Carnaroli rice. Yes, it has to be Arborio or Carnaroli, the normal rice does not have enough starch
10 quail giblets (or 400 g Chicken giblets). One can save quail giblets by freezing them until enough has been collected
1 medium sized onion finely chopped
1 Large clove Garlic (more if you like) finely chopped
1 tablespoon rosemary or sage finely chopped
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive Oil
3 tablepoon butter
pinch of dried chili flakes
1 cup of good white wine
salt andpPepper
Half a cup of grated parmigiano cheese ( stir it in at the end, or serve with cheese on top)
one bottle Sangiovese wine (to go in to the cook and the cook’s friends 😉 )
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Heat the stock and keep it hot. Ad one table spoon of olive oil and one table spoon of butter, a quarter of the onions and a quarter of the garlic to a pan and saute until soft. Ad the giblets and brown slightly. Pour half a cup of white wine in and evaporate. Turn the temperature down, ad the Chili, Sage or Rosemary, and braise in a drop of stock for about 30 minutes until tender. Use a pot big enough to hold everything with ample room for lots of stirring. Put the rest of the olive oil and one table spoon of butter in the pot and add the rest of the onion and garlic and saute over a gentle heat until the onion is soft but not coloured. Add the rice to the onion mixture in the pot and stir a few minutes to heat through. Toast the rice and cover every grain in oil. Add a half a cup of good white wine and cook until the rice have absorbed all the wine. Turn the heat medium low and start adding a few ladles of stock, and stir constantly. Every time the rice becomes dry, ad a ladle of hot stock and keep stirring. When half cooked (ten minutes) add the warm giblets to the rice. Keep adding hot stock a ladle at a time and keep stirring until the rice is almost al dente. The consistency should be very moist as the rice will still absorb moisture and dry out for some time. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper while cooking. Immediately take off the heat and stir in one tablespoon of cold butter and half a cup of grated Parmigiano (optional). Stir quite aggressively to make it creamy and smooth. Let it rest for about three minutes while the rice finisesh cooking in the residual heat and serve immediately. Top with grated Parmiginao cheese if not stirred in at the end. The rice must never be dry but must also never float in the stock. If you add the stock all at once you will end up with boiled rice, not risotto. Each grain of rice should have its own glistening coating of stock, and should be chewy, not soft and soggy. In Veneto they serve risotto “all’onda” which means like the waves of the sea – very soft and they give you only a fork to eat it – no spoon. This is also the way I like it, even though I am from Lombardy.
We often eat risotto as a main meal but it makes a great primi piatti if the main meal is meat. I would serve a great Sangiovese red with this if there is any left after tasting the good wine while cooking.
Stock
Good stock is the one ingredient a kitchen should never be without.
INGREDIENTS
Chicken bones or (quail back bone, neck, wing tips and excessive skin) – About half a Kg in total or more if you want to make a stronger stock.
2 onions (No need to skin) – Washed and roughly cut up. Could be replaced with Leeks
2 large carrots leaves and all) – Washed and roughly cut up
half a bunch of Celery (Leaves and all) – Washed and roughly cut up. You could add celeriac leaves if you have any
salt lightly to taste
8 Liters of water
I often buy chicken frames from the supermarket (sorry, but sometimes I have to go there) or use the back bones and necks of the quails, when I slaughter, which are both good for stock even though different. Quails make a much stronger stock than chicken. You can also do a fish stock, by replacing the meat with fish heads and frames. I keep the stocks separate so I have different flavours for different dishes. Put all the ingredients, including the water (cold) into a meat stock pot and boil over a low heat for at least two hours, but preferably more. Let the liquid reduced by about one third and keep topping it up with more cold water to keep it at this level. Stir every so often to prevent it from burning and sticking to the bottom.
Strain the liquid from the solids using a colander and return the liquid to the stock pot and heat until boiling again. Immediately pour into clean containers and seal immediately (I use 2 liter plastic buckets). Should the lids fit properly, the reduction in product temperature will form a very effective vacuum seal. If you have maintained a high level of cleanliness and your containers were clean, the stock will remain good for months in the pantry, even though I normally keep mine in the fridge. Once opened it should be kept in the fridge and used within a couple of days. The vegetables are good to feed to your Chickens and Quails.
With home made stock, soups are delicious and easy, pasta sauces and stews shine and you cannot make risotto without it. Braising meat and keeping it moist with the correct stock also ad complexity and additional flovour.
Papardelle al Ragǔ d’Quaglia (Quail Sauce Pasta)
This Quail Sauce works with any pasta, but I prefer to team it with broad home made Pappardelle Pasta (Recipe for Pappardelle on a later occasion).
Quail Sauce
8 Quails butterflied
6 Tablespoon Olive Oil
30 g Butter
4 Cloves Garlic finely sliced
2 Medium Onions sliced
1 Red Sweet Pepper/ Pepperoni seeds removed and sliced in strips
2 Small Carrots diced
Half a fresh Chilli finely sliced
4 Cups Quail or Chicken Stock
1 Fresh Tomato chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 Glasses Good Red Wine (One for the Chef and one for the dish)
Home made Papardelle (Enough for four people – about 300g of flour and 3 eggs)
Put the olive oil, butter, garlic and onion in a large casserole pot and saute over medium heat until soft. Turn up the heat, ad the Quails and brown on all sides. Ad the wine (one glass only) and let it simmer until the wine has evaporated. Turn down the heat, ad the carrots, pepperoni and chilli and baste, adding stock to keep it moist in the partially covered the pot. Adjust for Salt and Pepper. When the meat is soft and comes away from the bones, which may take up to an hour, remove the quails from the pot and remove the flesh from the bones. If the sauce in the pot is too runny reduce it over medium heat until the right consistency – if too dry ad some stock. Add the deboned Quail back to the sauce and heat through well. In the mean time cook the Papardelle and just before ready ad the chopped tomato to the sauce and stir through well. Now drain and ad the Pappardelle to the sauce pot, stir and heat through – serve immediately.
HOW TO “BUTTERFLY” A QUAIL BACKYARD FARMER STYLE ( not for the squeamish )
For various reasons I have to slaughter some quail from time to time. I may have too many males, it may be necessary to introduce new blood in to the breeding pens, hens may stop laying, and so on. My method of preparing quail for the pot has evolved through experience and may be useful to someone. I would like to know how others approach this fairly unpleasant task!
Line a 20 Liter bucket with a black garbage bag and after decapitating the quail with a meat cleaver, hold the bird over the open bag to let it bleed. Hold the wings to prevent them from fluttering and splashing blood. After about one minute tie a piece of soft wire around one leg and hook it over the side of the bucket, letting the bird hang inside the bucket, to let it bleed into the bag. Submerge the bird in scalding water for ten second then immediately pluck all the feathers until the carcass is clean. Cut the feet off by cutting through the shank close to the hock joint – (foot side of the joint). If you cut through the joint the meat retracts from the thigh when cooking and exposes the bone.
Take a meat shear and insert from the back hard up against the backbone. Cut all along the backbone, keeping the inside tip of the shears close to the top, until you have cut through right to the front. Do the same to the other side of the backbone. If you keep your shears against the inside top, you would have missed all the entrails.
It is now easy to lift the neck and backbone from the carcass, starting from the neck side
Cut through the backbone as close to the cloaca as possible. Also cut through the skin immediately below the cloaca. The backbone / neck sections goes straight into the dish holding all the parts to cook stock from. By inserting your middle finger underneath the entrails, starting from the back and moving your hand forward keeping your finger against the breastbone you will lift all the entrails out, intact without soiling the carcass.
The only parts that may still be attached are the lungs – scrape these out and put into the stock dish. Cut the neck skin short and ad this to the stock dish.Wash the carcass and leave to dry a bit.
Carefully remove the gizzard and put into a separate dish for cleaning later. Also cut loose the proventriculus and hart which goes into the third dish. Make sure you identify the gall bladder and cut it loose from the liver without spilling gall onto the liver.
The liver then goes with the proventriculus and hart and also add the gizzard after cleaning to make wonderful quail liver dishes like risotto .
Butterflying your quails in this described way instead of cutting through the breastbone (from the front instead of the described way from the back) you retain the moisture in the breast much better during cooking. No damage is done to any of the expensive cuts either. The backbone, which is always difficult to eat and does not have much meat makes great quail stock.
There are many wonderful Quail Recipes
Back Yard Farmer 