Processing and about to cook our first quail

[Jenlyn9483]

Ok I have aquired probably 30+ White texas pharaoh quail. All adults. Mixture of males and females. I pick up 5-10 here and there at the auction adn I have hatched some from the eggs. I have mainly been keeping them for selling eggs and selling live quail. The other day one of my Fiance's friends found out he had quail and begged him for half dozen to take hunting with him to eat while he was out hunting. So I cked it out online and looked into byc to see what yall were doing, and we skinned out 6 of them. It was SOOOOO easy and QUICK! We skinned them. So we decided to process some for our supper tonight to see what all the rave is about. We were already grilling some Cornish X rock breast from the freezer anyway, decided to throw some quail on there too to see what we are missing..Cant wait to see how it is.

 

[Cason]

Quail is a delicacy. You'll love it, I'm sure.

 

[miss_thenorth]

How was he quail?? And also, how big were the birds after processing?

Keeping my options open for spring.....

 

[CK Chickadilly]

Let us know if the meat was tender after cooking. How are you preparing it?

I am thinking ahead to spring also!

 

[becky3086]

I normally like to have my quail roasted with a can of cream of mushroom soup poured on top. So good...

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quail are awesome.

We have skinned and plucked them. They are simple to pluck. All
you need is a 150 degree pot of water on the stove to scald them in.

We deepfried some plucked quail and baked the skinned ones.

The meat is amazing. You don't even need to let it rest or brine it
but I'm sure it makes it better if you do.




P.S. I don't think your hunter friend wanted to eat them. He probably
wanted to use them to train his dogs to flush out or retrieve birds.
This is common in the hunting community.

 

[CK Chickadilly]

Quote:
What kind of quail are the best to eat?

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
What kind of quail are the best to eat?

We've only had Coturnix so I'm not sure if there is a difference in taste.
I would guess the larger the better. We hatched some Button Quail
but I can't imagine eating something that tiny.

 

[becky3086]

I never scalded a quail ever. The feathers come right off if you butcher them before the molt the first time. I never brined them or anything like that. They went in the frig for two days and then in the freezer.
Corturnix and Texas A&M are good quail to eat.

 

[Jenlyn9483]

Purplechicken, I know the hunter guy wanted to eat them because he wanted us to process them first, LOL.

The quail were really good. We had an imaculate dinner that night. I had two homegrown Cornish x rock breast and 4 quail. i marinated them all in a gallon bag of Tuscan Italian dressing, wrapped them in tin foil and but on the grill. They were DELICIOUS, flavor was awesome. The conish x breast were so tender adn juicy. The quail was juicy too but i think it would have been more tender cooked longer. Next time im going to slow roast. I want to try some fried too.