Grilled Quail Recipe - How to Grill Quail | Hank Shaw (2024)

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If you’ve never grilled or barbecued quail, you really ought to give it a go. They are basically teeny chickens, with a delicate flavor and super tender meat. Even wild ones tend to be tender, although they are denser and more flavorful than domestic quail.

It’s classic outdoor party food: A pile of grilled quail, slathered in sauce, people gnawing away at them all over the yard, drinking beer, laughing. What’s not to love?

Start by spatchco*cking your quail.

I know, that sounds dirty. But it’s really just a cooking term for flattening the birds. You use kitchen shears to cut out the backbones of the quail, then you flatten them with your hands so they cook evenly.

I take the extra step of removing the ribs with a sharp knife and shears. The fewer bones the better. If you are buying your quail, you can often buy them “tunnel boned,” which means the only bones left in the birds are those in the legs and wings.

When you are done, they should look like this. These are, obviously, wild quail, as they are a little bruised up from the hunt.

Grilling them this way is easy. Coat with oil, salt well and slap on a hot grill. Start with the breast side up so you can cook the whole bird well without incinerating the delicate breast meat. Once that side is good and browned — a little char is a good thing here — only then do you flip it. Paint with the sauce of your choice and you’re good to go.

Barbecuing will take longer, but it’s just as easy. Do the same thing as in grilling, only keep the quail away from direct heat. You will need to paint and flip several times, but you can get richly flavored barbecued quail in less than an hour.(My favorite slow-barbecuedquail recipe uses a Southwestern style sauce.)

Sauce is your big choice here. You could go European and just use olive oil, lemon, some herbs, salt and pepper. I do this a lot.

Or you could go American BBQ and use your favorite sauce. I have several barbecue sauce recipes over at my friend Elise’s site Simply Recipes. But if you have to pin me down, my favorite way to grill quail is with a mustard-based, South Carolina-style barbecue sauce. It is the perfect match for the quail.

Break out more quail than you think you need when you make this. Normally two quail per person is a good portion, but I’ve eaten six at a sitting, and have seen otherwise demure young women gobble down four. And if they don’t all get eaten? No worries, as they are spectacular eaten the next day cold for lunch.