Entombed Quail

I think it is quiet suitable for my first blog entry to be the ever famous (or if not, it should be) Entombed Quail. It may imply that a beautiful quail is a dead quail, but don’t read too much into that…

So, what is entombed quail and where does it come from?

An excellent French film, Babette's Feast (Babettes Gaestebud) is about a French chief in exile who gives up everything she possesses to give her friends one great meal. The centerpiece to this meal is Babette’s special dish: cailles en sarcophagi or quail in coffins.

This recipe is essentially a variation on vol-au-vents as involves puff pastry which is stuffed with goodness. In this case it is a bit like a turducken because entombed quail is puff pastry, stuffed with quail, stuffed with foie gras and truffles. Last time I made this recipe, I committed to a friend that it would have been less expensive to stuff each quail with a twenty dollar bill – point is, foie gras and truffles are expensive. Plus, many object – and perhaps rightly so – with using foie gras; and truffles are expensive too.

Here’s the recipe I use.

Ingredients

1 pound frozen puff pastry, defrosted

4 quails, fully deboned

Salt

White pepper

12 oz of foie gras (or substitute)

1 oz black truffle, thinly sliced (or substitute)

A dozen button mushrooms

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter, divided

1 cup dry white wine

1 cup chicken stock – rich

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut four 5” rounds in puff pastry and dimple each with a 3” round. Bake on a parchment sheet for 20 minutes or until puffed up and golden brown and delicious. Let completely cool. Carefully lift perforated lid off and set aside.

Wipe dirt off mushrooms; trim the stems and half. Sauté in a tablespoon of butter until soft. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Wash quails thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff each with a slice or two of foie gras and two slices of truffles. Save the remainder of the foie gras. Truss each quail as necessary. In another pan heat a tablespoon of butter and brown the birds on each side. Then place in oven for 15 minutes turning after ten. Remove and hold warm.

Make the sauce in the same pan in which the birds baked. Place over high heat on stove. Add the wine and bring to a boil. Scrap up pan drippings and incorporate. Add the stock. Add the remanding foie gras, ground up – and the mushrooms as is. Reduce until desired consistency. Remove from heat and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter whisking in.

Cut and remove the trussing from the quail.

Serve by drizzling sauce into each nest, then the bird, more sauce and then the little top.

Substitutes

If you want to leave out the foie gras, you can make forcemeat (or really in this case mousseline) from some extra quail. Boil the quail in a some water. Once cooked through, let it cool and ground in a food processor, then blend two or three tablespoons of cream into the mixture. This can be used as an expectable substitute.

If you want to leave out the truffles, substitute one or two mushrooms in the stuffing.