Red quail curry recipe
Elizabeth, Derry and I were given a lift across country from Lucknow to Agra by a group of men who were going shooting. We all squashed together in a small van for the long journey. As the conversation in India invariably turns to food they talked about how their wives cooked the game they shot – quails, partridge, duck and more. Back in England, I tried combining game birds with Indian spices and found it opened up delicious new ways of cooking them.
Ingredients
- 3 red chillies
- 1 large red pepper
- 3 large cloves of garlic
- 2 medium white onions
- 75 g butter
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 0.5 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 0.5 tsp tamarind paste
- 300 ml very hot water
- 400 g tinned chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 3 cardamom pods, remove seeds and roughly crush seeds
- 6 quails
- 5 tbsp whole milk yogurt
- 1 pinch of sea salt
Details
- Cuisine: Indian
- Recipe Type: Main
- Difficulty: Medium
- Preparation Time: 20 mins
- Cooking Time: 90 mins
- Serves: 6
Step-by-step
- Cut open the chillies under running water and discard the seeds and stems. Cut open the red pepper, discard the seeds and stem and chop roughly.
- Peel the garlic and onions and chop roughly. Put these prepared ingredients into a food processor and whiz to a smooth purée.
- Heat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Melt the butter in a large flameproof casserole over a low heat.
- Add the ground spices and stir around for a minute, then add the vegetable purée, cover the dish and leave over a very low heat for about 8 minutes.
- Meanwhile, put the tamarind paste into a measuring jug, add the hot water and stir to dissolve the paste.
- Stir the tamarind water, chopped tomatoes, tomato purée and crushed cardamom seeds into the purée in the casserole and season with a little sea salt.
- Put the quails into the dish, cover and increase the heat to medium. When the sauce is just bubbling, transfer the dish to the centre of the oven.
- Cook for 1¼ -1½ hours until the quails are tender enough to come away easily from the bone.
- Before serving, spoon the yogurt on top of the curry, but do not stir it in.
Taken from Orchards in the Oasis by Josceline Dimbleby. Published by Quadrille.
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