Quail Sauce for Fresh Pasta |
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Prep Time: 0 Minutes Cook Time: 0 Minutes |
Ready In: 0 Minutes Servings: 1 |
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In the kitchen of Piedmont's splendid country restaurants it is usually a woman who rules. Invariably, she has been schooled not by chefs, but by her mother, and her professional accomplishments are founded on the region's home cooking, a cuisine that, for finesse and variety, is unsurpassed in Italy, or even in Europe. One of the most gifted of these women is Ilvia Boggione of the restaurant Vicoletto in Alba. Among her specialties is this deft rendition of a classic game bird that is sometimes served with tajarin thin homemade noodles. To call it sauce may be misleading, however, particularly if one's idea of a pasta sauce is something juicy and all-enveloping. There is nothing runny or sauce-like about this one. Quail is cooked until its meat slips succulently off the bone, and small bite-size pieces of it are nestled among the pasta strands. A more accurate description of the dish would be pasta with quail. Suggested pasta: Homemade noodles make the only satisfactory pairing for this sauce, particularly thick, square shaped tonnarelli or the broad pappardelle or fettuccine. In Piedmont (as noted above) they use tajarin, a thin noodle that in restaurants is made almost exclusively from a large number of egg yolks. Ingredients:
4 quail |
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil |
2 teaspoons very finely chopped onion |
2 teaspoons very finely chopped celery |
2 teaspoons finely chopped carrot |
1 fresh sage leaf and 6 or 7 rosemary leaves, chopped very fine together |
salt |
black pepper ground fresh |
1/2 cup dry white wine |
1 fresh, ripe tomato, peeled, or 1 canned italian plum tomato, cut in large dice |
freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese |
Directions:
1. Wash the quail inside and out under cold running water, then pat thoroughly dry with kitchen towels.
2. Choose a sauté pan that can contain all the quail in one layer. Put in the oil and turn on the heat to medium high. When the oil is hot, add the quail. Brown the birds on all sides, then remove them from the pan. Leave the heat turned on.
3. Add the chopped onion, celery, carrot, sage, and rosemary, and cook for a minute or two, stirring frequently. When the vegetables have become lightly colored, return the quail to the pan, adding salt and pepper.
4. Turn the birds over a few times, and after 2 or 3 minutes, add the wine. Let the wine bubble for a minute or less, then turn the heat down to medium low and put a lid on the pan.
5. When the quail have cooked for 20 minutes, add the cut-up tomato; turn the birds over two or three times; put the lid on the pan, setting it slightly ajar; and cook until the quail meat comes easily off the bone, another 25 minutes or so. Check the pan from time to time, and whenever you find that the cooking juices are drying up, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of water.
6. Using a slotted spoon, remove the quail from the pan, and as soon as they are cool enough for you to handle, remove the skin and take the meat off the bone. Look out for and pick out any tiny bones.
7. Return the meat to the pan, and turn it in the pan juices for a minute or two over low heat. Toss the pasta with the entire contents of the pan, adding freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
8. Presentation note: If you leave the tiny quail drumstricks with the bone in and hold them back when tossing the pasta, you can place them decoratively over each individual plate of pasta.
9. Marcella Cucina
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