codornices en escabeche or quail in delicious vinagrette sauce

this is Cuenca, Castilla la Mancha, summer 2010

mas Cuenca

This recipe is very good and very easy. You'll look like a professional french chef if you do this when you have a guests at home. Codornices-quails are quite cheap and good this time of year. This is a recipe that my grandfather does all the time. It is a very famous recipe of Castilla la Mancha, which is where he is from. One time I saw my aunt do it and I thought "I need to learn that", here it is, you wont regret trying it.

Ingredients:

• 4 clean quails
• 12 spoonfuls of vinegar (the cheap type is totally fine as well), so about 1 glass (around 2 american cups).
• A few leaves of laurel or bayleaf.
• around 3 cloves of garlic.
• pepper (in grain, around 12).
• salt.



our victims

• carrots and green onions (optional)

1. First, clean well the quail, every part, feathers included, and bellies out (disgusting, yes). Cut the necks and legs if they seem to long like it wont work.

1. 2. Then cut up the garlic cloves in halves and put them inside the poor little quail, together with a leave of bayleaf.

1. 3. You have to tie up the legs of the quail so that they are somewhat together when you cook them, and so that the filling doesn't come out (the filling is the piece of garlic and the leave of laurel).

we tied these guys, like they were alive
or something

4. Then fry the quails a little in some olive oil so that the birds get some colour and so that the meat is sealed. Once you see the quails are kinda golden (after like 10 min), cover the quails with water and add the vinegar. Put the veggies if you have them (I added one carrot in slices and one green onion, but more for decoration purposes). Add the pepper grains, the salt as well and let is simmer. Do not cover the saucepan so that the vinegar evoporates little by little. Try it, if you think the sauce is too strong and tastes too much like vinegar, wait a little, because the vinegar evoporates but if you still think it is way too strong add water, a cup of water, and if you still think it's too strong, add a little more. This recipe really depends on your taste and there are a lot of variations of the recipe, so this is my opinion and my take on it, but dont worry too much, because honestly this recipe is hard to mess up.

frying a little...snif!

5. Let them simmer for one hour, quails are a little hard so the meat has to simmer for a while. Let it cool a little as well because this sauce is much MUCH better after you let it cool for even half and hour. But the recipe is even BETTER the following day, it tastes awesome the following day, and the next one.

Talking to my grandfather he said that this recipe was very much used after the war because vinegar is a good way to keep meat for many many days, even for a week.

6. If you add some french fries to the side, or some salad with pinenuts, piñones, honestly it will ROCK your world.  

olé