Sticky Roasted Quail with Sausage

Today I went off shopping in search of heat.  The heater in our house stopped working again, when the new repairmen came by.  “It needs parts,” they said. “We need to speak to the landlady,” they said.  What they neglected to say was, “We also disconnected the actual working parts.  You will be cold until we can come back.  Perhaps next week.”  Well, we discovered that soon enough so, today, with authorization from the landlady, I went to look for small space heaters that would warm us until the repairmen come back.  Next week. God willing.   But since Cairo is experiencing an unusually cold winter, there were no space heaters to be found.  Or firewood, which was plan B.  I did, however, find quail!  Which kept me warm this afternoon and part of the evening because I roasted the little babies in the oven. 

Adapted from Jamie’s Great Britain.

Ingredients

4 whole quail

4 fresh sausages

4 slices of smoked bacon

6 cloves of garlic

Four stalks of fresh rosemary

Sea salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

1 – 2 tablespoons honey

Several splashes white balsamic vinegar or cider vinegar

Method

Clean your quail by cutting off all visible fat and removing any residual feathers.  Cut them up into pieces just as you would do a chicken.  Two breasts, two legs, two thighs and two wings.  I left the backbone attached to whichever pieces seemed most handy because I was not about to throw any of these small birds away.

This is for scale.  The legs compared to my teaspoon. 

Cut your sausage into 16 pieces. Cut your bacon slices into four pieces each.  Yeah, that is 16 pieces too.   Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

Crush the garlic with the side of a knife. 

Pull the leaves off of the rosemary and mince.

Pop your sausage, quail and bacon into a large bowl.  Add in the garlic and rosemary and season well with salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly.

Drizzle generously with olive oil and mix again.  Leave to marinate for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

 Skewer the quail (skin side up for all the pieces) and sausage and garlic and bacon.  One satay stick holds half a quail (one breast, one thigh, one leg and one wing) and two pieces of sausage and two pieces of bacon.  I spread the garlic around as justly as I could.

Roast in your hot oven (skin side up at first) for 20-30 minutes, turning once half way through.  

Near the end of cooking, take the tray out and turn the skin side back up.  Drizzle with a little runny honey and the vinegar.  (I did take one photo of me drizzling on the honey, but unfortunately it was really blurry.  Sorry.)  Return to the oven for a few more minutes.  Remove from the oven when sticky and caramelized.

Enjoy!