Baked Quail

The other day I was at an Asian market and saw quail. I don't recall ever seeing quail at a store and bought them for old-time sake.

When I was a young boy, perhaps 8 or 9, we had a quail fly into one of the back windows at our home and it was killed. I told my mother I wanted to cook it, so she helped me find a recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook, and I plucked and cleaned the quail and baked it. I recall that the recipe had some kind of fruit in it, perhaps orange, and I also recall it was very good.

I found a recipe for Heavenly Baked Quail, recipe #264635 at Recipezaar.com. I followed the recipe with only slight modifications and it was fabulous.

The package came with four whole quail and the recipe also called for four. Many of the other recipes I looked at called for six or eight quail.

I cut each quail in half

And wrapped one-half piece of bacon around each half, securing it with a toothpick.

I coated each quail piece in flour and put it in a frying pan with oil.

When each piece was light brown

I pulled them out, put them on a paper towel to let the oil drain and then put them in a casserole dish.

Then I added 1 diced red onion, a bunch of asparagus spears (the recipe called for a diced bell pepper and I think the asparagus is better), 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.

Then I added 1 can of condensed golden mushroom soup mixed with one-half cup of water.

I placed the cover on the casserole dish and baked it at 350 degrees for an hour. Then I took the cover off and baked it for another 10 minutes.

In the meantime, I mashed some potatoes. When the quail were finished, I removed the toothpicks, placed a big helping of mashed potatoes on my plate and three halves of the quail, along with the gravy mixture.

It was amazingly good. I ate my whole large serving and was stuffed. Judy ate less then two halves. The recipe serves four and that is about right. It has a strong pepper taste and a very rich flavor. There was a surprising amount of meat on the little bones, although certain parts, like the wing and neck, are virtually impossible to get any meat off of.

Judy felt it would be a good company meal (for those who are adventurous) and I suspect we'll be having it again.