I'll be taking my daughter hunting for quail, pheasant, and chukkar on the 31st and we'll be cooking them up before she has to head back up to Vancouver for college. Anyone got any tasty recipes? All these birds are similar in that they have white breast meat and dark legs and thighs; of course they differ in size. Heck, I guess even a good chicken recipe might work. I'm thinking something smothered so as not to dry it out along with mixed wild and long grain rice.
I usually inject with some butter, cajun seasoning, broil to get the skin crispy and seal in the juices then bake to medium. Overcooking is a disaster. Wild rice works good, but it takes a little longer. Bock beer fried quail also works for me.
I have a tequila pheasant recipe from the Baby Routh or Routh Street Cafe guy and an Emeril recipe for quail, but I have pretty much only used boneless quail from a place that went out of bidness. I just flatten (boneless ones come that way) them and dust them in flour with basil and tarragon and saute them in clarified butter for about 4 minutes a side and then deglaze with a sweet fortified wine like, Marsala, Port or Sherry. Makes a nice gravy and shrooms are an easy add to the deal. Might add some flour and butter after deglazing to make the gravy. It has been a decade at least, but I can find the recipes and send them if you wish. The Pheasant Tequila (and peaches) recipe turned out well with domestic Pheasants and the Emeril quail was pretty good also. BUT, I have been using farmed birds and not birds that worked for a living. The fact that you mentioned smothering leads me to believe that you understand that caveat. You could easily google the Emeril recipe. He used duxelle in the title. I think he has one with bleu cheese as well that was pretty decent if you like bleu cheese. I do, but go easy on it. If someone says they have a really great recipe for birds that entails bacon wrapping and maybe accessorizing with jalapenos and/or cream cheese, I will do something bad.
The Link this one looks yummy my daughter found some recipe online for medieval pheasant and it was way good!
