Slow Cooker Smothered Quail

Quick cooking quail come together with vegetables and a wine sauce in the slow cooker in this southern dinner.

Slow Cooker Smothered Quail

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

My recipe of the day is for smothered quail, a traditional southern recipe, done easily in the crockpot or slow cooker with vegetables and a wine gravy, which can be served with rice.

In older times, it used to be as do-it-yourselfer as grabbing your shotgun and hunting dogs or spending a Sunday afternoon fishing to hunt up some supper. But as people hunt less and quail are not as abundant as they once were, cooking of quail is less seen, but it doesn’t mean it is not delicious.

Quail are like tiny chickens, cooking up cute in the crockpot with a savory wine sauce. They cook quickly any way you prepare them, in fact, so you will notice the slow cooker time is shorter than that for other foods, and is not a typo.

Quail are small, and you can generally find them frozen, either whole or partially boned. I’ve used the partially boned ones here. They are small, like cornish hens, but delicate and tender. With gravy and sauce this can be a slightly sticky finger meal, but with napkins at the ready, everyone is just fine and the eating is fun.

Slow Cooker Smothered Quail

Servings: 2
Time: 2hr
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

14 ounces semi-boneless quail (about 4)
Flour dredge: flour, salt and pepper
1/2 cup cooking oil
4 ounces chopped crimini mushrooms
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped green pepper
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon dry thyme
salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
cooked white rice
2 scallions, chopped (garnish)
1 sliced tomato (optional)

Method:

Rinse the quail and pat dry; season with salt and pepper then dredge in flour, shaking off excess.
Heat oil in a skillet and brown the quail on both sides, setting them in the slow cooker when browned.
Drain off fat in the skillet until you have 1/4 cup.
Add the mushrooms, onions and peppers to the pan and saute until the onions soften.
Stir in the garlic, then add the flour, thyme, salt and pepper, stirring to coat the vegetables and cooking for about one minute.
Add the wine, chicken stock and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil, then pour all the sauce over the quail in the slow cooker.
Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 90 minutes.
Serve quail and sauce over rice, garnished with scallions and tomato.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com