But you must have something you hunted to cook. I do understand some hunt the isles of their grocer, but this one may require a visit to a quail hunting field.
First. we need to work our way through a hunting adventure.
I recall a story of two guys who had not hunted in some time. They finally located a guy who had a bit of prime bird hunting property and, for a fee, would host a guided hunt on his property. They made the arrangements and showed up at the guy's place one morning for their quail hunt. When they arrived, they found him, to their surprise, with two horses and the owner's mule, named Ada, saddled and ready to go. They did not know they had signed up for a mounted hunt, but as long as they got some birds they figured anything would be fine. And so, off they went into a field where the guy assured them, they would find birds.
They had not gone far when suddenly Ada's ears perked up and she froze. Her nostrils flared, her tail rose to a straight line behind her, and she lifted one hoof in a classic bird dog point. They watched as the owner brought his shotgun to his shoulder and gave the command to “Flush”. That is exactly what Ada did, and the guy shot two birds as the covey flew away. The two hunters were speechless as Ada walked over and retrieved the downed birds then turned her head to present them to the owner, who bagged them. At that point the guy turned to one of the two and told him, “The next flush is yours.” It wasn't long until Ada located another covey and performed identically. The shooter got a pair of birds and watched as Ada retrieved just as she did before. He whispered, “Amazing!” to his buddy as they moved deeper into the field. With the owner telling the other hunter the next flush would be his. Within minutes, Ada had pointed again, and the third guy also bagged a couple of birds. As Ada retrieved, he could not hold back his thoughts and told the owner, “That mule is the most incredible thing I have ever seen!”
The
owner replied, “Thanks. She does OK, but we have to stay away from
the pond at the far end of the field, because She loves to fish a lot
more than hunt.”
Ba-Ding, Ba-DOng!
Oh well, enough hunting stories for you guys and
gals who have good memories of days when there were lots of quail to
hunt. I can remember coveys of 50+ quail when I was a young guy.
Suitable habitat is hard to find now, so big hunts are not so common
anymore.
I had a chance to cook a couple of Quail this past week, and I thought I would share one of my recipes with you.
Bacon
Wrapped Roasted Quail, with Roasted Carrots and Wild Rice Pilaf:
Ingredients:
(For
two portions)
Dressed Quail – However many you want. I cooked two.
4 thick strips
Bacon
Garlic salt, black pepper, salt
1 Tablespoon
butter
Carrots. I roasted six (smallish) whole carrots to
yield two portions
A little shy of 1 cup of wild rice blend
1
1/4 cups chicken broth
1 Tablespoon celery - small diced
1
Tablespoon carrot – small diced or grated
1 Tablespoon Onion –
small diced
2 Tablespoons Mushrooms – medium small diced
Salt
and Black Pepper to package directions
Suitable
buttered crusty bread herbed sourdough with sunflower seed from
Kroger Bakery
Directions:
The
wild rice will take 45 minutes to an hour to cook, so start with it
and hold other cooking until it is done. The celery, carrot, onion,
and mushroom makes this more like a Pilaf than just cooked rice. As
you know, the wild rice blends they sell at the grocer now days have
regular rice and other grains added to the blend, and that is fine
with me. I have not had pure wild rice in maybe 50 years, so what do
I know about what is good? Anyhow, I like the taste of this one just
fine, so it is what I use. Whatever you find will be OK, too.
Prep
celery, onion, carrot, and mushroom
Measure
and rinse the rice blend
Add chicken broth (Beef broth would be nice, too), veggies, butter, salt and a little black pepper to boiler, bring to a boil, cover and cook until the wild rice portion is tender. May need to add a little more broth, and I hove no idea if the package directions come anywhere close to accurate. It might cook in 45 minutes or an hour and ten.
I
precook my bacon in the microwave while the rice is cooking. The
quail will cook (To an internal temp of 160 -165 degrees F) in about
15-20 minutes at 350 degrees F and there is no way the bacon will
cook that fast, so I precook my bacon until it is 80 percent complete
in the microwave before wrapping the quail.
While
the rice is cooking, season the quail with melted butter, garlic
salt, black pepper and salt, then wrap in bacon, using 2 pieces per
bird. I use tooth picks as needed to hold the bacon in place. I also
add a little garlic salt, salt, and black pepper over the bacon wrap.
Set aside until needed.
Hold off on roasting the carrots and quail until the rice is done, because to me, there is no way of knowing how long the rice will take. Once it is done, you can zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute to warn it back up when plating the dish.
The
carrots are roasted whole, so I scrub them very clean, remove the
green tops, spray with a little Pam, season with a little garlic
salt, salt and black pepper and roast on an oiled pan at 400 degrees
F for 10-12 minutes, then pull from the oven and reduce the oven
temperature to 350 degrees F.
Place
quail on the roaster pan with the carrots and put everything back
into the oven at 350 until the quail reach an internal temperature of 160 - 165 degrees f.
I put my bread in the oven just before cooking the quail. At 350 degrees F, it shouldn't burn, but use your knowledge of your oven as a guide for when you want to heat up the bread. I like it hot, but not burnt. This one was a precooked sourdough loaf with herbs and sunflower seed from Kroger.
Plate
and serve. Pretty good. All of these photos are th same plate. They get their feelings hurt If I don't use them, so I have just posted all of them.
I still have two birds that I put into the freezer. I will probably roast them with some cornbread dressing and Craisins. I might marinate them in orange juice before roasting.
This
recipe works great with most game birds and also with Cornish Hens.
It would be OK to roast the quail at 400 degrees f. Remember, at that
temperature, they will cook very quickly, then dry out and get tough
if cooked too long.
Thanks,
for looking.
God Bless you.
7 comments:
dont know where this hunt took place but wild quail are all but extinct in Mississippi.
odds are these are all pen raised quail.
Georga.
Very meaty bacon. So I know who to blame for its scarcity when I have to sort through 50 packages to find bacon this lean.
Dove are good this way, too. A suggested (sometimes) addition, to your taste/liking: A strip of either bell or jalapeno pepper in a slot cut on each side of the breastbone.
Our way: take a fresh jap, cut the top off, and split in half lengthwise. Carefully and thoroughly remove ALL seeds and white membrane. Cut a small horizontal strip from the stem end of one of the halves and taste/check for heat level (japs can vary greatly in heat level). Cut whatever size strips lengthwise you'd prefer - we like a little "snap" with no "mouth-sear" - and insert into slots cut on each side of the breastbone. Wrap in bacon and grill, in order of our liking, over 1) a bed of wood coals, 2) a charcoal grill, 3) gas grill, 4) cast iron grill or other stovetop grill. If we happen to have a smoker going, we'll smoke 'em, but won't get a smoker going, even an electric one, just for them unless we're doing a lot of them.
As a side-note, whole carrots grilled over coals or gas are darned good if you've never tried them that way and like carrots (or even if you think you do not). All we do is give them a wash - DO NOT PEEL - and put them on the grill with no oil or seasoning. We don't even salt them before or after as we don't think they need it - YMMV. Let them get a nice char - more than just grill marks - on them all around. Even a bit burnt-looking. Even if you don't particularly like them raw or cooked soft, try them this way. I know several people who swore they didn't like carrots, and still don't any other way, but love them this one way.
Roasted carrots, roasted beets, roasted squash. Folks don't know what they are missing.
It's funny you mention beets. Until my 30s, I never really considered beets. I didn't not like them, but I didn't really seek them out. On a country salad bar, I'd have a few, but other than that, pretty much nothing. Then, about 30 years ago, we had a fire-roasted beet salad with goat cheese. And the world of roasted beets opened up.
Just like the carrots, we toss a beet of three on the grill, char it up, and put it into a sealed plastic container. After about 5-10 minutes, the skin will nearly fall off. Slice it thin but not too thin, layer with a goat cheese spread (see below) and enjoy.
The goat cheese spread we like:
A suitable chunk of goat cheese (it's called chevre, after "goat," in French), mixed with a little whole milk yogurt, some dill, garlic, dill, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon. Let it sit on the counter to get soft-ish and mix well. Put a slice of the fire-roasted beet on each plate, put a dollop of the chevre mix, another slice of beet, etc. If you want to be fancy, it's a "Napoleon," but even unfancy and just stacked haphazardly with the cheese mix kinda spooned-smeared-on, it's pretty good eating.
And here's one of those "well, damn..." things: don't worry about making too much spread. If you have leftovers, here's a leftover we like for breakfast, brunch, or dinner: saute a little spinach and onions, make whatever omelette (or even scrambled eggs) you like and fill with the spinach and leftover goat cheese.
To go further into the "well...damn..." things, if you happen to have some leftover pitas (Greek or pocket), make the spinach and some scrambled eggs, pile it with the cheese mix into the pitas, and enjoy.
MMmmmMMMmmmm!
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