For 4 people: 6 fresh quail, olive oil, salt, pepper. FOR THE MARINADE: 2 carrots, 1 shallot, 1 small celery bulb, 2 shallots, 1 clove garlic, 1/4 l dark port, 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 1 bay leaf, 4 allspice seeds, 2 sprigs fresh thyme. FOND: 1 tomato, 1 onion, 1 more carrot, olive oil; 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 bay leaf, 1 glass red wine, salt, pepper.
Using kitchen scissors, trim the quail and separate them from the bones - except for the thighs and shoulders - so that you have two thighs and breasts of each in front of you. Leave the skin on.
Clean and peel the carrots and celery bulb and cut into small cubes, chop the shallots and garlic clove. Place in a suitable dish with the quail breasts and thighs, add the spices and pour over the port. Do not add salt. Cover, refrigerate and let marinate overnight. Turn once, twice.
Chop the quail bones into small pieces, roast them well with the other scraps in the quails' own fat, add the chopped tomato, chopped onion and finely chopped carrot and let them roast too. Salt only lightly. Pepper; add bay leaf and thyme. Cover with red wine and water and boil a stock for about an hour. Then pour through a sieve, degrease the liquid and boil down to a syrupy consistency. Add salt and pepper only at the end. Chill. This can be done the day before.
Remove the quail legs and quail breasts from the marinade, drain in a colander and pat dry with kitchen paper. Fish the vegetables out of the marinade, pour it through a sieve, remove the spices.
Fry the quail breasts and thighs in hot olive oil, turning several times (and not too hot!), until golden brown and crispy all over, but do not let them become dry; the meat must remain pink inside. This hardly takes more than 10 minutes. Sprinkle with the crushed thyme and finally salt and pepper. Remove the meat and keep it warm. Drain the fat from the pan, add a dash of fresh olive oil and stir-fry the vegetables from the marinade in it, season with salt and pepper. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and add to the meat. Deglaze the pan with the port wine from the marinade, boil down, add the stock and boil down again to make an intense sauce. Season to taste and finally add the meat and vegetables, cover and leave on a very low heat for 10 minutes to allow the flavours to combine. Serve with mashed potatoes.
Quail Matthes
.With its 84 hectares, the Matthes' farm is within the usual size in the low mountain ranges and has nothing in common with northern or even eastern German monocultural agricultural factories. Hedi Matthes calls it with a wink a "Krämerhof", with the many vegetables and fruits around, fattening pigs, laying hens - and the quails.
Years ago, when Hedi and Horst Matthes were visiting a poultry farmer in Bavaria and actually wanted to buy green-egg-laying Araucana chickens, they decided to take some quail eggs with them. Since then, the farmer's wife has taken the birds, which are related to the field chicken, to her heart. Not only are the chicks covered in camouflage-coloured fluff as big as a walnut and really cute, quails are also exceptionally clever animals. During rearing (under warming infrared light) they become aware of changes in food and water locations much more quickly than would be the case with chicken or turkey chicks. However, this is of little use to them in the end, because they are ready for slaughter from the age of 8 weeks, and the poultry farmer who delays this point for a long time is ill-advised, as it does not take long for quails to become tough, similar to soup chickens. Quails are finally laid after one year. This makes quail breeding relatively easy to manage, and the Matthes farm is able to manage with birds that can fly fast but not for long, in addition to the much more important fattening pigs. "We wouldn't have them if they were complicated", Hedi Mattes points out.
Coveted, because of their culinary interest, are both the quail eggs and the birds themselves. The dainty, spotted little eggs cut a fine figure as quail eggs or cooked, and can easily rival chicken eggs in flavor. They can also be found in better restaurants as "lost eggs", cracked and poached.
However, anyone who sets out to crack quail eggs on the edge of a cup, for example, as they are used to doing with chicken eggs, will not be successful. This is because the small eggs are surrounded by a very solid membrane under the shell, which is best dealt with using a serrated knife. Matthes quail eggs are also available in renowned delicatessens, such as Plöger in Frankfurt and Käfer in Munich. That speaks for their quality. They are also affordable: you pay 15 cents per egg, and a quail ready to cook costs about €2.
The quail itself also has a lot to offer in the way of culinary delights; in very fine establishments, it is even served boneless and filled with foie gras pafait. This can be a very nice thing to do; quail with port wine and vegetables is less elaborate but also very tasty. You can eat them, for example at a picnic or while travelling to wine festivals, swell with your fingers, honest!
Agriculture and Farm Shop
Horst Matthes
Odenwaldstr. 204
64372 Ober-Ramstadt-Ober-Modau (near Darmstadt)
Phone: 06167-314
Fax: 7696
Opening hours: Farm Shop: Tue-Sat 8-12 u. Tue-Fri 15-18 h
Markets: Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, Ziegelhüttenplatz, Sat 8-12 h; Rhein-Neckar-Zentrum, Viernheim and Main-Taunus-Zentrum, Sulzbach
from Waldemar Thomas