To Cook Quails
Split them down the back, place them in a baking pan cover with butter and season with pepper and salt. When two-thirds cooked, remove them from the pan, and broil over the fire until done. The sauce will consist of the melted butter and the juice of the quail remaining in the pan.
A two-stage method: the birds start in butter in the oven and finish over direct heat for color. The original gives no temperatures, times or quantities, so the judgment calls are all yours.
- Split down the backThis is spatchcocking — cut through the backbone with shears and press the bird flat so it lies open, skin side up. Flattened quail cook evenly and sit properly on a grill or under a broiler.
- "Cover with butter""Cover with butter" is ambiguous, but since the butter left in the pan is said to become the sauce, a generous amount in the pan — roughly 1 to 2 tablespoons per bird — fits the recipe better than a thin coating. It bastes the birds, so do not skimp, and do not let it brown to the point of bitterness.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; a hot oven of 425F suits birds this small. Ten to twelve minutes gets most quail to the "two-thirds cooked" stage described.
- "Broil over the fire""Broil over the fire" meant a gridiron over live coals. A charcoal grill or a gas grill on high is the closest match; a modern overhead broiler, rack set close to the element, works and takes 2 to 4 minutes per side.
- DonenessPoultry is safe at 165F in the thigh, and quail dry out fast at that point. Some cooks prefer to pull them when the breast reads 155-160F and is still faintly pink and rest them for five minutes; that is a matter of taste, not a food-safety recommendation, and carries the usual risk of undercooked poultry.
- Farmed versus wildSupermarket and butcher quail are farmed, usually 4 to 6 oz dressed and fatter than shot birds. Wild quail are leaner and cook faster, and any hunted bird should be checked for lead or steel shot before serving.
- The pan sauceMelted butter plus the drippings is the whole sauce, and it will separate if left standing. Scrape the pan while it is still hot, add a spoonful of water or stock to loosen the browned juices, and swirl it together off the heat.
- YieldTwo birds per person as a main course, one as a first course. Serve with something that soaks up the butter — toast, polenta or fried bread in the period manner.
Quail appear in the game chapter of American household books of this period because they were still a common table bird, taken in quantity by hunters and sold in city markets alongside grouse, woodcock and plover. The bobwhite of the eastern and midwestern states was the bird most Americans meant by "quail." Market hunting of songbirds and small game was curtailed in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century, chiefly through the Lacey Act of 1900 and state laws banning the sale of game, after which wild game birds largely left commerce and quail on a restaurant menu came from a farm instead. The two-stage technique here — oven first, then over the coals — is an older kitchen habit: the pan protects the small carcass while it cooks through, and the fire supplies the browning.