Being Valentine's Day, I thought I'd make quail in rose petal sauce.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
Hee hee...(wiping eyes)...I'm sorry, that was funny...ha ha...
Quail in Rose Petal Sauce comes from Laura Esquivel's wonderful, wonderful book Like Water for Chocolate. It's an elaborate and passionate recipe with hilarious repercussions at the dinner table. It involves grinding rose petals in a mortar, roasting and pureeing chestnuts, dry-plucking quail, obtaining attar of roses, and running off naked with a Mexican revolutionary. It's delightful to read but I doubt it would be something I would want to eat in real life. Not to mention that I don't know where to procure quail. And I hear that being naked on a horse is highly overrated.
My parents recently went to a party where the hosts recreated the great feast from the book Babette's Feast, by Isak Dinesen. This famous meal features another quail dish, "Cailles en Sarcophage." Quail in coffins. It's quail in a puff pastry shell with truffles and fois gras. I found a picture of it on Wikipedia and in my opinion, it's about the most un-romantic thing I've ever seen on a plate. If I could get beyond it looking like poultry suicide, and were inclined to make it, I do currently have the package of puff pastry in my freezer. But I still don't know how or where to get quail.
What I did have however, were two cornish hens in the fridge, and Anna Shapiro's terrific book Feast of Words. She has taken the quail dish from Babette's Feast and altered it to a more appealing Quail with Potatoes and Grapes. It sounded delicious and just the kind of special thing I was wanting to make for me and Jeeps. I have transcribed it here instead of in this post because I didn't follow it exactly. Firstly, cornish hens need longer cooking time than quail. Second, I used about half the amount of butter.
Cornish Hens with Potatoes and Grapes
- 2-4 cornish hens
- 3-4 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
- kosher salt and ground pepper
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 2 cups seedless grapes (green or red, I used just green this time)
Preheat oven to 425
In an oven-proof skillet, heat olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Rinse the hens, pat dry, truss if desired (I didn't). Season outside and cavities with salt and pepper. Brown birds in skillet on all sides, finishing breast-side up. Put into oven and set timer for 20 minutes.
In another skillet, heat olive oil. Add potato cubes, salt them, turn until coated, and cover. Cook for 20 minutes, shaking the pan and, if necessary, scrape with a wooden spoon. When browned all over, remove heat and keep warm.
Take hens out of oven. Add chicken stock and wine to pan, stirring with a wooden spoon and scraping up browned bits from bottom. Add grapes. Return to oven and set timer for 15 minutes.
Remove pan and set on stove over medium heat. Cover and let sauce boil for 5 minutes. Move birds to serving dish, add 1 tablespoon butter to sauce and let simmer another 5 minutes. Pour sauce and grapes over hens, serve with potatoes.
I made steamed green beans to go along with it. The kids had their heart-shaped pizzas, Jeeps and I tucked into our dish. I was a little nervous, hoping the birds had cooked thoroughly, and if it was horrible then at least there was leftover roast pork.
IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!
Holy crap, I could not believe how in love I was with this dinner. The hen was cooked perfectly, it was so fun to carve apart this miniature roast chicken, and it was the perfect serving size for me. We ripped this meal apart. Jeeps devoured it to the carcass, stole the kids' pizza crusts to dip in the sauce, and when there was nothing left to dip, he drank the sauce. Not a scrap left. And, best of all, a tiny tiny wishbone to save for a rainy day.
I was so happy with tonight's dinner. I've been wanting to try Cornish hens for a while, and I am definitely going to come back to this recipe.