Rosemary Roasted Quail Recipes

ROAST QUAIL

Steps:

• If you choose to brine your quail, boil the water or wine with the kosher salt and bay leaves, then turn off the heat and let cool. Submerge the quail in this brine for 2 to 6 hours.
• Preheat your oven to 500°F, or if it doesn't get that hot, as hot as your oven will go. This will take a little while for most ovens, up to 30 minutes. While the oven is preheating, take the quail out of the fridge and pat them dry. Coat with lard, olive oil or butter (your quail will be browner with melted butter) and salt generously. Set aside at room temperature while the oven heats.
• When the oven is hot, get a small roasting pan or cast-iron frying pan and set the quail in it. They will want to tip over, so steady them with cut pieces of the celery stick. Try to prevent the quail from touching each other to speed the cooking process.
• Roast the quail in the oven for 12 to 18 minutes. The lower end of the spectrum will give you quail that are juicy, succulent and a little pink on the inside -- but pale. The higher end of the spectrum will give you a fully cooked, browner quail, but one that is at the edge of being dry. Your choice.
• When you take the quail out of the oven, place on a cutting board and rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Use this time to make the wild game sauce of your choice, or just squirt lemon juice on the birds before serving.

ROSEMARY ROASTED QUAIL

Steps:

• Combine the marinade ingredients and set aside.
• Squeeze the juice from 2 of the orange sections over 1 of the quails, then rub the bird all over with the squeezed sections. Stuff the cavity with half of a rosemary sprig, an eighth of the minced garlic and a section of the squeezed orange. Secure the legs of the quail to the body by running a toothpick through a leg just above the thigh and passing it through the cavity of the bird and into the other leg. Repeat with the remaining birds.
• Place the quails in a nonreactive bowl and cover them with the marinade. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or, preferably, overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove quails from the marinade, reserving the excess, and place them in a roasting pan. Brush the quails with the olive oil and place them in the oven. Roast for 20 minutes, stopping to baste them with the reserved marinade after about 10 minutes.
• Transfer the roasted quails to a platter, remove toothpicks and garnish with chopped rosemary. Serve immediately.

GRILLED ROSEMARY-PECAN QUAIL

Steps:

• Mix the pecans and rosemary together, and divide into 4 parts.
• Stuff the cavity of the quail with the mixture. Salt and pepper the quails and grill over hot coals for 5 minutes per side.
• While the quails are grilling, mix together the cane syrup and butter, and drizzle over the quails immediately after pulling them off the grill, and serve.