James St Cook School - Asian BBQ Quail

What do you get a 27 year old for their birthday? I was really hoping for a new camera lens – the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 (to fill the much needed wide-angle gap for my 400D). What Steph got me instead blew my socks off.

A cooking lesson at the James St Cooking School!

What a night. Three courses were cooked up – Asian BBQ Quail, Duck and Blood Orange Salad and Roasted Moroccan Chicken Breast stuffed with feta, preserved lemon and cous cous. We had hands on tuition with the cooking as well as a brief lesson on de-boning quail, duck and chicken.

So to start with, here is the recipe for the Asian BBQ Quail.

Here’s what you need:
4 tbsp sweet soy sauce (ABC/Kechap Manis)
4 tbsp oyster sauce
2 cloves of crushed garlic
½ stalk of lemon grass – shaved via grater
1 thinly sliced Kaffir lime leaf

(this is enough marinade for 4 quails)

Here’s what you do:
Steph and I went through the delicate task of de-boning the quail. To be honest, it’s probably no problem to cut the bird in half (Asian restaurant style) to cook – it certainly saves a lot of hassle.

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. Then marinate the quail for 1-2 hours. BBQ or grill the quail for 2-3 minutes on each side and rest in a warm place off the grill for 3-5 minutes. Our quail (pictured) was served on a bed of crispy fried noodles (which you can do very quickly by deep frying a bundle of dried clear-noodles/vermicelli).

Add 30ml of water to the remaining marinade, put into a pan and bring to the boil. Drizzle this over the quail and noodles and serve immediately.

Tips:
When purchasing quails always choose the ‘extra-large’ varieties as these will give you the most meat.

Try not to use ‘jarlic’ – crushed/minced garlic from a jar. The preservatives and additives change the taste of the garlic.