On a recent trip to the dreaded T£sc0 I got some quail in the reduced section. I've had them a couple of times before but found them not only tiny (duh!) but quite dry. Anyway my plan was to do them in the slow cooker but as I forgot to get them out of the freezer the night before that was no good. A quick google search highlighted a recipe for cooking them in the pressure cooker!
This is my recipe, which was based on the one I found but doctored to our tastes. It fed 3 of us and we've got all the stock and leftover veg to make a soup/stew for dinner tonight.
4 quail
Thick slice of home cured bacon
Half a chorizo
1 onion
a stick of celery
a carrot
a tin of tomatoes
about half a bottle of home made red wine
about 1 tbsp of flour seasoned with paprika, black pepper and salt, parsley and thyme
home made chicken stock
I marinaded the quail (which had partially defrosted in salt water for a couple of hours (that was suggested on another recipe) then drained them and bunged them in a plastic bag with the seasoned flour.
Chopped up everything else. Fried the bacon and chorizo, in the pressure cooker pan, to rend some fat then added the veg and sweat them for a few minutes. Put all that in a bowl leaving a bit of the fat in the and browned the quail quickly. Chucked everything back in plus the tomatoes and liquids, stuck on the lid and pressure cooked the whole thing for 15 minutes from getting up to pressure.
The whole thing took long enough to boil and mash spuds and steam some kale to accompany.
Absolutely delicious, the meat was really succulent and the other meats meant one bird was enough for me and my mother - OH had two but he's a pig
) And I reckon it would be just as good with any other small game birds or cut up larger game.
