Quail and Dumplings will warm your stomach and your soul.
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| Egg dumplings ready to be cut. |
One of the project goals here at Modern Wild Man is to pass on tried and true recipes for wild game. Bringing home meals for your family, providing and cooking are eternal and prehistoric needs of man. At Modern Wild Man we prefer to bring protein home from the wild; from fresh air and clean water, not laid out on pink styrofoam wrapped in plastic.
Quail and dumplings is a family favorite at our house. This dish is iconic, it's one that grandma used to make. A pot of quail and dumplings stewing quietly on a stove top in the family kitchen is like a warm fire or a cozy blanket, wrapping you in warmth and security. I think this dish could be used as a definition for "comfort food". I hope you have the opportunity to bring the savory smells of warm stewing quail, and the comfort of homemade dumplings into your kitchen and home.
This recipe is easily scaled depending on the number of folks you are feeding, or the number of quail in your game vest. I usually figure one quail per person, and one egg and a cup of flour for enough dumplings for the same person.
Modern Wild Man Quail and Dumplings
Ingredients-
4 Quail dressed and cleaned
4T butter
2T vegetable or canola oil
2 carrots chopped
4 ribs celery chopped
1 medium yellow or white onion chopped
2 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
32 oz chicken or game broth
4 large eggs
4 cups all purpose flour more or less
salt and pepper to taste
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| Modern Wild Man and Meg with a mess of quail from November. |
Start by roasting the whole quail in a heavy dutch or iron skillet. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Oil the dutch with the 1T vegetable oil. Rub each quail breast with a pinch of salt and pepper. Lay the quail breast up and spaced apart in the bottom of your dutch. Place a 1T pat of butter on the breast of each quail. Slide the dutch into the heated oven for 12 minutes. Don't worry if the quail are a little on the underdone or pink side when the 12 minutes is up, we are going to pick the roasted quail and stew in our broth in just a little bit. After the 12 minutes of roasting, take the hot pan out of the oven, and set it aside to let the quail cool.
While the quail are in the oven building that incredible roasted flavor, it's time to chop up the veggies. Once you've chopped through the carrots, onion, celery and smashed garlic add them all to a heavy soup pot or dutch oven with 1T vegetable oil. Turn the heat to medium low and let the veggies sweat in the bottom of the pan for a little while. After 10 or 15 minutes of sweating on medium low heat, the chopped vegetables are ready to stew. Pour in the 32oz of chicken broth and bring the heat down to low. Put a lid on the pot and let the aromatic vegetables do their stewing magic.
While the vegetables stew and build a perfect broth and the roasted quail is cooling, it's time to make up some homemade dumplings. Dumplings and noodles can be bought prepackaged for sure, but if you've got the time, counter space and a little courage I think you will find homemade dumplings and noodles to be much better than boughten. In a medium glass or ceramic bowl beat together the 4 eggs. Once the eggs are beaten together, fold in the 4 cups of flour a little at a time with a fork. The egg and flour mixture will form into a beautiful golden sticky dough. Keep your hands floured to help keep it from sticking too bad. Work the dough into a ball with your floured hands and knead it until all the lumps are out. If the dough is still too sticky, add additional flour 1T at a time. When the dough is worked into a firm ball, flour a large cutting board, rolling pin and knife. With your hands, separate the dough into thirds and put one of the thirds onto the cutting board. Using the rolling pin, roll out the dough to the desired thickness of your dumplings. Some folks like thicker dumplings than others. Once you've rolled out the dough onto a floured cutting board, use the sharp floured knife to cut out your dumplings. Move them to a floured plate or cookie sheet to dry slightly as you work through the other two thirds of the dough. Your dumplings are ready to boil and thicken that tasty broth.
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| Dumplings rolled out and cut, waiting for the soup pot. |
Now that your dumplings are done it is time to pick the cooled quail. Pick the cooled breast and leg meat from each quail. Put the meat into a clean bowl separate from the bones. The vegetables in the soup stock should have stewed for an hour or more by now, and they have given all the flavor they have to offer by now. Using a slotted spoon or wire spider dip out the carrots, celery, onion, and garlic from the flavorful broth, I usually put them in the bowl with the quail bones.
Add the picked quail meat and dumplings to the broth and bring the heat up to medium, or medium high. Gently bring the golden broth up to a boil with the quail meat and dumplings added, stirring occasionally. The dumplings need twelve to fifteen minutes to boil depending on how well done you like them. Serve this hearty and warming dumpling soup by itself with crusty buttered bread, or over mashed potatoes if you like.
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| A hot pot of quail and dumplings bubbling away. |
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