January 3, 2021

Stuffed quails with chanterelle sauce

This Thanksgiving we had to keep it small like everyone else in the country. The only guests at the dinner table were our kids so we had to rethink it – one whole turkey would be too much; I don’t enjoy eating leftovers for days on end. I thought back to France and traditional cuisine. A quick browsing through Larousse Gastronomique left me intimidated (run for the hills level of intimidation) but also fascinated so I decided to maybe bring it down to my level. I wanted richness, I wanted a little challenge, I wanted a bit of luxury and I wanted a delicious dish that will transport me to the restaurants of Paris.

This round, I completely forgot about taking a picture of “the cast of characters” so just come along for the ride anyway…I was caught up in the complexity of the challenge and lost track of some steps but I promise to make up for it in describing them.

Serving Size:

Time:

1 hour

Difficulty:

Medium

Ingredients

4 quails (I bought mine online from D’Artagnan
3 shallots, finely diced
2 tablespoons of butter
a few chicken livers
1 fennel pork sausage (remove from the casing)
4 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons of milk
2 tablespoons of cognac (plus some more for the chanterelle sauce
4-5 sprigs of thyme
1 lb chanterelles
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
more butter for frying the quails

Directions

Start with the stuffing: melt the 1 tablespoon of butter in the pan, add the sprigs of thyme and the finely diced shallots. Sauté for a few minutes until the shallots are translucent. Add the chicken livers (they benefit from a good milk soaking from the day before but if you don’t have the time, skip it) to the pan and cook for about 5 min (you’re only looking for a bit of color, they will continue to cook once inside the quail). Yes, they will be pink and bloody – DON’T PANIC!
Move the chicken liver/onion mixture to a bowl (remove the thyme sprigs), wipe the pan, add the other tablespoon of butter and sauté the sausage meat until it changes color.
In the bowl of the food processor add the chicken liver mixture, the cooked sausage, the breadcrumbs, the milk, the cognac and the salt and pepper. Blend until very smooth. Traditionally, a mousseline would be passed through a tamis…but this is home cooking, folks!!!!
Take the stuffing and fill each quail taking care to reshape the quails as you go along. Heat some butter in a cast iron pan and sauté them until they get a great color on them, turning once. Place in a preheated oven at 375F for 15-20 min. Spoon sauce (recipe below) over the quail and serve.
For the sauce, I start the chanterelles in a dry pan, I want as much concentrated flavor as I can get. Once the chanterelles give up most of their water, I sprinkle a little salt and add the cognac. Ignite (carefully) the cognac for a quick flambee. Once the flames die down ad the cream and reduce for a few minutes…it’s now ready to spoon over the roasted quail. You can certainly add some garlic to this recipe but I skipped it this time.