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Quails, Compote Of
Take six or eight quails, according to the size of the dish. Cut the claws off, and empty the birds, without making too large an opening. Truss them with the legs inward. Have a dozen pieces of bacon cut in the shape of corks, blanch them in order to draw the salt out, then let them fry in butter till they are of a light brown; next take them out of the stewpan to make room for the quails, which stew till they begin to be of a light brown also, and then take them out. Make a roux, which moisten with a ladleful of gravy of veal; add a bunch of parsley and green onions, some small white onions (if approved of), mushrooms, etc. As soon as the quails are done, take them out of the stewpan, and let the bacon stew till thoroughly done. Skim the sauce well, and strain it through a tamis over the birds; then dish the bacon, mushrooms, and small onions, and send up quite hot and well seasoned.
A stew of small game birds in a veal-stock sauce, written for a cook who already knows how to make a roux and dress a dish. The whole risk here is overcooking: quail are done in a fraction of the time a chicken needs.
- Timing is the hingeWhole quail are cooked through in roughly 12 to 18 minutes of gentle stewing after browning; the breast dries out and turns woolly beyond that. Brown them hard and fast, then let them finish in the sauce and lift them out the moment the thigh juices run clear.
- Buying the birdsFarmed quail, sold ready-dressed at 4-6 oz each, are what you will find; "empty the birds" simply means draw them, already done for you. Wild quail are subject to hunting seasons and licences in most places.
- Bacon "in the shape of corks"Thick lardons, about 1/2 inch square and an inch long, cut from a slab of unsmoked streaky bacon or pancetta. Blanching in simmering water for 2-3 minutes draws out the heavy nineteenth-century cure; modern bacon is far less salty, so 1 minute is enough, and you may skip it with pancetta.
- Gravy of vealA concentrated brown veal stock, not a thickened gravy. Use about 1 cup of good veal or brown chicken stock, reduced; a spoonful of demi-glace does the same work.
- The rouxEqual weights butter and flour, cooked to a light hazelnut colour before the stock goes in. Around 1 oz of each will thicken a cup of stock to a coating sauce.
- Bunch of parsley and green onionsA bouquet: parsley stalks and the green tops of spring onions tied together, lifted out before serving. The "small white onions" are pearl or button onions, peeled whole.
- TamisA drum sieve of woven cloth. A fine-mesh conical strainer or a sieve lined with muslin gives the same result. Skim the fat off first, or it will simply pass through.
- Serving and yieldSix to eight quail serve three to four as a main course, two birds each. Sauce the birds, scatter the lardons, mushrooms and onions around them, and send it out hot -- the sauce sets and dulls quickly as it cools.
A compote in nineteenth-century kitchen French was used for a slow stew in a rich brown sauce, and it was applied to small game birds -- pigeon, partridge, quail -- as readily as to fruit. The method here is straight out of the French professional tradition that Cassell's drew on heavily: blanched lardons, a roux moistened with veal stock, a bouquet of parsley and onion tops, everything passed through the tamis. Quail reached British tables in quantity in the Victorian period as imported birds, netted on migration in southern Europe and Egypt and shipped live in cages to be fattened before sale, which is why a book of this date can casually assume six or eight of them for one dish.