Quail Saltimbocca
Go back to all recipes
I have this herb garden in my backyard that's overrun with beautiful Basil. In the middle of it are these two lonely, but healthy sage plants. I was looking from something I could do with that sage and decided on making a Saltimbocca. If you're not familiar with a Saltimbocca, it's thin meat, generally veal, that's rolled up with Prosciutto and Sage, lightly fried then cooked in a pan sauce of white wine and butter. In my last recipe post, I made a Pheasant Saltimbocca, and it was delicious, but after finishing that recipe, there were still some things I wanted to try with it, so I decided to attempt a quail version of it. A classic southern recipe is Quail wrapped in bacon, and since Prosciuttos is a cousin to Bacon, I thought the pair would be great together in this recipe. Fruits generally also pairs well with Quail, so I added some sliced peaches and cook them with my wine sauce, then topped it off with some Mozzarella cheese! It turned out great, I just wish my Quail had been a little meatier.
Saltimbocca is an Italian recipe where, you would roll the meat up with Prosciutto and Sage before pan frying it. I don't know how flexible the Italians are with that rule, but these Quail have bones, making them pretty stiff and resistant to rolling. I guess deboning them would make them more flexible and might possibly allow you to roll them, but I elected to just spatchcock my birds. Spatchcocking is a method of removing the spine of the bird, allowing it to lay flat while they cook. So instead of rolling, I just cooked my birds flat, but wrapped in prosciutto with a sage leaf on top. I dusted them with flour, browned them in butter, but didn't cook them all the way through, before I removed them to a plate, so I could start my pan sauce. My pan sauce was just white wine, lemon juice, butter and brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Once the sauce had reduced by half, I add the Quail back to the pan, add sliced peaches and Mozzarella cheese, seasoned with salt and pepper, then stuck in the oven for a few minutes. Once the Quail was almost done, I switched the oven to broil to lightly brown the cheese and carnalize the peaches.
Ingredients
Quail Saltimbocca
Instructions
Quail Saltimbocca
Step #1 Start this recipe by gathering your ingredients, slicing your peaches and Spatchcocking the quail by removing the spine of the birds with kitchen shears.
Step #2 Using kitchen shears, cut around around both sides of the spine, so that it can be removed.
Step #3 Flip the Quail over so the breast meat is pointing up.
Step #4 Place your palm over top of the breast and press down until your hear the breast bone pop.
Step #5 This should allow the birds to lay flat.
Step #6 Season Quail with salt and pepper.
Step #7 Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in large, oven safe skillet.
Step #8 Lightly dust the quail with flour on both sides.
Step #9 Wrap each quail with one slice of Prosciutto, pinning in place with toothpicks. Place one sage leaf over top of each quail breast, pinning in place with toothpick
Step #10 Add two to four sage leaves to hot oil and allow to crisp. Remove to a plate
Step #11 Add four quail to the hot skillet, breast side up.
Step #12 Allow to brown for a few minutes in hot pan, then flip over and allow the other side to brown for another minute or two.
Step #13 Add two tablespoons of butter to skillet, allowing to melt.
Step #14 Add White wine to hot skillet, using a spatula to scrap up any brown bits from the bottom of the skillet.
Step #15 Squeeze in the juice from one half of lemon.
Step #16 Add Peach slices to pan.
Step #17 Add Mozzarella cheese and a few fresh sage leaves. Season with salt and pepper.
Step #18 Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer allow to cook 5-8 minutes. Allowing the sauce to reduce and the quail to cook.
Step #19 Set oven to broil on HI. Place Quail in oven for a few minutes, watching closely, just allowing cheese to melt and peaches to caramelize. Remove and allow to rest a few minutes before serving. Sprinkle crushed fried sage leaves over top.
Recipe Card
Quail Saltimbocca
Ingredients
Quail Saltimbocca
Instructions
Quail Saltimbocca
About the Author
Jeff Davis
Visit authors websiteYou may think cooking and recipes don’t have much to do with a website dedicated to hunting dogs ... but really, why do we hunt? Sure, we enjoy watching our dogs work in the field and being outdoors, but ultimately, hunting is about survival and feeding our families. We might as well try to do it well. I'm not a chef and definitely no food authority ... but I do like to eat and enjoy cooking. After searching for people willing to share their recipes on Gundog Central, without much success, I decided to try to do a few on my own, with my wife Tami's help. The recipes I share here are things I like to eat and have made here at home. I've tried to include step-by-step instructions with each meal describing exactly how I did it, but my method may not be best, if you decide to try a recipe posted here, please use whatever technique you think works best, I'm simply sharing how I did it. You'll see a lot of recipes where I've tried to make things from starch, when I could have just used store bought ingredients, simply because I wanted to learn how something was done. My goal is to continually update these recipes as I learn new things and techniques. These are my attempts at creating good, home cooked food, that I would like to eat! If I'm sharing it here, my family and I enjoyed it and I believe you will too.
