Title: Quail with Crawfish Dressing
Categories: Game Poultry
Yield: 1 Servings

		Braces of quail
3	c	Stock of crawfish
		Shells/heads, onion, garlic,
		Carrots and water.
1		Pan of cornbread
1	c	Onion
1 1/2	c	Red bell pepper
1	c	Celery
1		Clove garlic
1		Stick of butter
1	lb	Crawfish tail meat
		Spice mixtures:
1	ts	White pepper
1	ts	Basil
1	ts	Thyme
1	ts	Red pepper (cayenne)
1	ts	Salt
2		Bay leaves

Okay, here's one of my favorite quail recipes:

You'll need a brace of quail per person. Pluck and draw the birds; don't even think about skinning them.

Crawfish Dressing:

You'll need about three or four cups of stock. I make my stock from scratch using crawfish shells/heads, onion, garlic, carrots and water. Use about six cups of water to make 3 cups of stock. Bring ingredients to a boil and simmer until reduced to 3 to 4 cups. NOTE: you can use can chicken or duck stock if you can't find whole crawfish (many places will sell you the cleaned tails in a vacuumed packed packages). Also, heaven forbid, you could use a canned chicken broth if you don't want to make a stock.

You'll need to run this mixture through a strainer to finish the stock. It probably wouldn't taste to good with a mess of crawfish shells in it ;-)

To make the dressing you will need cornbread. So bake it or buy it. I can't really tell you how much exactly. I use as much as it takes to absorb the liquids. I make a 9 inch cast-iron skillet's worth. I also use white cornbread but it doesn't really matter that much.

Now that you have your stock and cornbread here is how you make it.

Chop the following: onion bell pepper (I use red ones) celery garlic Make the spice mixture. Melt a stick of butter in a large skillet. saute veggies in butter until tender. add spice mixture to veggies add the three cups of stock and simmer a few minutes longer.

Add crawfish (between a half to a full pound of tail meat). Simmer about five minutes.

with a slotted spoon, remove all veggies and crawfish and place into a food processor or blender. lightly process (I usually don't over do it here. I like to have small bits of crawfish in the dressing).

Return processed mixture to the stock. Use crumbled cornbread to absorb the liquid.

Stuff the quail with the dressing and baste with butter. Roast birds at 325 degrees, basting as often as needed. Roast time is dependent upon number of birds. Once the skin turns a light golden brown, check by trying to separate one of the tiny little legs from the quail. If it pulls from the side easily it's done. Explaining when a roasted bird is done is hard for me to do. It's just something you gotta know.

Serve this with the remainder of the crawfish stuffing and a what ever veggies you desire.

One other note of importance: Crawfish are not in season during the start of quail season so use this recipe later in the season. It's a cold weather dish anyhow. One other thing, do *not* substitute shrimp for crawfish; they're completely different tasting crustaceans.

Enjoy, Ken "the cajun game chef" Ihrer Newsgroups: rec.hunting

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