doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cooking Quail

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I'm with you George on frying them. Being from South Georgia, for many years I didn't know that there was any other way to cook them. Over the years my wife (a yankee from Rochester New York no less} has adapted my Mother's frying method. She salts and peppers them and adds a seasoning salt before battering in floor. We always make cotton picking gravy (brown gravy made from the drippings with flour and onions seasoned} and rice to go with the birds. The birds are wonderful, but the rice and gravy make the meal

Floured and fried, seasoned with salt and pepper. Never had any better any other way. Done right they don't dry out. No comparison in the taste of pen-raised and wild birds. Wild are much better.

Of cose' it is heresy not to have grits, plain grits seasoned with salt and pepper and butter melted over them, and homemade biscuits, with fried quail!

SRH

Stan how 'bout a nice slice of pone soaked in blackstrap or sorghum for dessert?

Druther have buttered biscuits and syrup.

When I get to heaven if St. Peter meets me at the Golden gates and tells me I can have anything I want for supper I'll say, "Fried quail and grits!".

SRH

Fishfowler how do you keep them from tasting like pig lard with those bacon wraps?

A guy at work cooked some at a 4th of July party. He stuffed them with rosemary and garlic, wrapped them in bacon, and smoked them. He said it was the best quail he's ever had.

Many years ago, I came across an old recipe called "Caille en Cendres", French for quail in ashes. As I recall, one first gutted and beheaded the quail, shoving a big marble of butter into the cavity, plus a grape, then sewed or pinned it shut. One then packed clean, wet, natural clay (not modeling clay!) around the still feathered bird, and buried the package in ashes, with a decent layer of coals atop of the ash. When done (30-40 min.?), one cracks open the clay and the feathers, supposedly, go with it. I kept meaning to try this in the fireplace sometime, but never did. In S. China, where I am often, something similar is done with chicken, though without the grape or feathers. Called "beggars chicken", it comes out invariably rich and juicy.

Rapscallion,

We used to cook fish caught on several day canoe trips on the Brazos between Possum Kingdom & Lake Whitney before they built Lake Procter that same way, packed in mud and cooked in the ashes of a campfire. They always tasted great. I was told the origin of that method here was from native Americans, but don't pretend to know if that is correct or not. The moisture in the clay or mud keeps the contents moist and the skin [or feathers??] sticks to the now fired 'mold' when it is broken open. BTW, 'stinky' muck and mud works just as well as the seemingly cleaner types of clay, neither imparting any 'taste' whatsoever. You simply have to do it to prove that to yourself. Leave the scales on the fish; we gutted them, but left the heads on & just packed the mud over the seam.

Perhaps not so dif from a 'Texas wrap' using a fresh onion slice for the moisture, when one thinks about it.