Broiled Quail
Split the quail down the back. Season with salt and white pepper, rub with soft butter, and dredge with flour. Broil fourteen minutes over clear coals, or gas.. Serve on hot buttered toast.
A three-line recipe that depends entirely on heat management and on the size of the bird. The instructions hold up; the timing does not.
- The timing is the hingeFourteen minutes would suit a larger bird, or one set well back from the fire. A farmed quail of 4-6 oz, split flat and set close to a hot broiler or grill, is generally done in 8-10 minutes total, turned once. Pull it when the breast reads about 160F; the thigh will finish carrying over.
- Split down the backCutting through the backbone and pressing the bird flat (spatchcocking) is what makes a whole small bird broilable at all. Flatten it firmly with the heel of your hand so the breast and thighs sit in one plane, or the legs will still be raw when the breast dries.
- "Clear coals"Coals burned down past the flame stage to an even grey ash, with no smoke and no flare-up. Under a modern gas or electric broiler, preheat fully and set the rack 4-5 inches below the element; butter and flour on a small bird will scorch closer than that.
- Dredge with flourA thin dusting over the butter, tapped off well. It browns fast and gives the skin a crust, but any excess will burn and taste of scorch. Skip it entirely if you are grilling directly over coals.
- White pepperWhite pepper was conventionally preferred for pale meats, on the grounds that dark specks would show; whether that was the intention here cannot be known. Black pepper works as well and to many tastes better.
- Wild versus farmedFarmed quail is mild, tender and reliably plump. Wild birds are leaner, more strongly flavoured and vary a good deal in size; check for shot before cooking and shorten the time further for small ones.
- The toast is structuralA thick slice of buttered toast under the bird catches the butter and juices, which are the best part. Set the quail on it skin side up straight off the fire and let it stand two minutes before serving.
- YieldOne quail is a first course; two make a modest main course per person.
Quail appear constantly in American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s because they were still genuinely abundant and cheap, sold by the dozen in city markets alongside snipe, plover and reedbirds. The bobwhite quail of the eastern and southern states was in some regions called simply "partridge" — the usage was common within parts of the South and Appalachia rather than uniform — and "quail" elsewhere, a naming muddle that persists in older recipe collections. Broiling on toast was the standard treatment for any small game bird thought worth eating plain: no stuffing, no sauce, nothing between the cook and the bird but salt, butter and fire, with the toast doing the work a sauce would otherwise do. Market hunting on this scale ended with the state game laws that followed in the early twentieth century, and the quail on a modern plate is almost always farm-raised, which is why the old cooking times now overshoot.