I like making them the french way. Rub them with salt and pepper, maybe some Old Bay. Then marinade them in buttermilk overnight. Then get some deep frying oil good and ready. Put some flour in a brown paper bag and then shake the birds in it till they are well covered then fry the,.
This is how I do my fried chicken too.
Otherwise I splay them up the breast and grill them with a little sea salt.
There’s several ways. Spatchcock and cook quickly on the grill, Or you can wrap the carcass in bacon and do them on the grill, or- batter and deep fry the little suckers.
Some corn bread stuffing with dried apricots and cherries to stuff them if you go the bacon wrapped route. Salt and pepper and the wood smoke is about all you need with quail.
I do something fairly similar to capozzoli. But after they’re fried, I’ll put them into a mushroom cream sauce and simmer that for a bit, then serve it all over some nice noodle of choice.
I make my pheasant like that a lot. Very easy and frying the meat retains a lot of the moisture. You don’t want it to be dry whatever you do.
No quail up north here, but we do get grouse. I think Grandma’s grouse recipe might be good with quail as well.
Take breasts and thigh/drumstick parts, and coat them in seasoned flour. Brown in a skillet with butter and a little olive oil. Remove and place the parts in a casserole dish. Cook some chopped onions and sliced mushrooms in the skillet, adding a little more butter and oil if needed. Deglaze the pan with some white wine, then add a carton of sour cream. Heat the sour cream till it bubbles, then pour over the bird pieces. Bake in a 350°F oven for an hour in a covered dish, take the cover off for the last 15 minutes to allow it to thicken. Serve with mashed taters.
We did 17 quail and 7 old layers on saturday(butchering). It is nice to have quail with their skin on. I know the crock pot only makes broth. With quail the broth is between chicken and beef. It was a shame to do that to those 6 but live and let the wife have the last say. SORRY CAP!
I think we need to cook sans anything, seeing we are just starting out. That way we can really appreciate them. Tin foil and 300 till they are done.
I made Drunken Quail, Fried them in butter til browned, placed them in a baking dish, in the pan I added 8oz of chopped porteblellas, 1/2 cup of sherry and 2 cups of stock (used the quail stock created from the first quail crock pot recipe) and 3 TBS of flour boiled 15 minutes and then added it to the baking dish with the quail and baked @ 350 for 1 hour, served on a bed of wild/brown rice. Good stuff. sorry no pictures.