Home › Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen › Quail on Toast
Quail on Toast
After the birds are nicely cleaned, cut them open down the back; salt and pepper them, and dredge with flour. Break down the breast and back bones, so they will lie flat, and place them in a pan with very little water and butter in a hot oven, covering them up tightly until nearly done. Then place in a spider in hot butter, and fry a moment to a nice brown. Have ready slices of baker's bread toasted, and slightly buttered upon a platter. The toast should be broken down with a carving knife, so that it will be tender. On this place the quail; make a sauce of the gravy in the pan, thicken lightly with browned flour, and pour over each quail and the toast.
A two-stage method — covered roasting to cook the birds through, then a quick fry for colour — that still works, provided the second stage is genuinely brief. Farmed quail are widely available frozen and are a fair substitute for the wild birds this recipe assumes.
- SpiderA spider is a cast-iron frying pan on three short legs, made to stand over coals. Any heavy skillet does the job here.
- Hot ovenRead this as 425-450F. The pan is covered tightly, so the birds are steaming as much as roasting; the water and butter should be no more than a film in the bottom.
- Splitting the birdsCutting down the back and pressing the breastbone flat is spatchcocking. Kitchen shears through the backbone, then a firm press with the heel of the hand, gives an even thickness that cooks in one go.
- TimingThe original gives none. Quail are small: 12-15 minutes covered at 425F brings them close, and the fry in butter takes a minute a side. Breast meat should reach 165F. Wild quail is leaner and dries fast, so err short in the oven and finish in the pan.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a pan or oven until nut-coloured. It thickens perhaps half as strongly as raw flour but gives colour and a roasted flavour; use roughly twice the quantity you would of plain flour, and expect a thin, gravy-like sauce rather than a coating one.
- Baker's breadIn this period the phrase distinguished bread bought from a baker from bread baked at home; the point here is a fine, even crumb. A firm white sandwich loaf, cut thick, is the modern equivalent.
- Breaking down the toastScoring or crushing the toast with the flat and edge of a carving knife lets it absorb the sauce without going to paste. Skipping this leaves a brittle raft under a wet bird.
- YieldThe original gives no number of birds. One quail per person as a first course, two as a main. The pan sauce will amount to a few spoonfuls at most; stretch it with a little stock if you want more than a moistening.
Quail on toast was a standing item on American hotel and club menus through the second half of the nineteenth century, when bobwhite quail were shot and sold by the barrel in eastern markets — the small bird set on a slice of buttered toast to catch the juices is the same logic as woodcock or snipe served the same way. The Home Cook Book (Chicago, first published 1874, with several later reissues) was compiled from contributions by local women and sold for charity, one of the earliest and most widely copied of the American community cookbooks, and its game chapter reflects a period when wild birds still came to town kitchens rather than farms. Market hunting of that intensity ended with state and federal game laws in the early twentieth century; quail sold today are farm-raised, plumper and milder than the birds this recipe had in mind.