This week's theme is a particularly fun one - "Mystery Box Madness". We had to choose a recipe from Diana Henry or one of the past IHCC chefs featuring any three of harissa, eggs, saffron, pumpkin, maple syrup, dates, rose water, oranges, spinach, and chickpeas. My Eat Your Books membership definitely came into play for this one!
Diana Henry's spiced quail with blood orange and date salad qualified, as it features harissa, dates and oranges. Unless I am at Merchants Tavern, I don't particularly care for quail, so I substituted duck breasts. I slashed the skin and fat, and sat them in the spicy marinade, leaving the skin clear of it. Then I seared them skin side down to render out some of the fat and get the skin nicely coloured before returning them to the marinade bath to bake in the oven.
Apparently blood oranges aren't in season yet, so I used normal navel oranges. I didn't add any orange juice to the dressing, but I squeezed out the membranes left after cutting out the orange segments, which made plenty of juice.
To accompany it I made a warm version of a mushroom and butterbean salad that my family has been enjoying for at least 30 years. Paul claims it was the first time I'd ever made it for him... which can't be true.
This was a fantastic dish. Warmly spicy, sweet and tangy. One to make again.
13 comments:
I never eat quail, only the eggs. I have to admit, I wouldn't know where to get it, so I had to chose duck too :-)
That looks yummy, Alicia. I made an Ina duck salad ages ago, was delicious and it got a lot of hits on the Ina Pinterest board. I'll have to look it up and compare. I'm sure there weren't any dates in it. This is a super combo salad!
There are such lovely warm flavors in this!
i just saw a recipe for lamb tacos with orange and thought that sounded good, but duck with orange sounds even better!
Ostwestwind - I like quail eggs, although they are so fiddly! I tried to crack a couple yesterday and ended up with shell everywhere.
Barbara - I'll have a look at Ina's version!
Joanne - I think if you subbed squash or pumpkin for the duck, or topped the salad with fried halloumi, you would be onto a good thing!
Grace - lamb tacos with orange sounds wonderful!
Duck beats quail for me any day. ;-) This makes a gorgeous salad--I love all of the colors. I need to use dates more in salads--Ottolenghi had a great one too.
It's fun to have you cooking along with us at IHCC. ;-)
Such a delicious looking salad! Using duck breast instead of quail sounds really good! Delicious vibrant salad!
That combination of flavours sounds wonderful with the duck. (Eat your books was invaluable to me also in finding a recipe for this challenge)
Sounds positively wonderful! I can't find duck on a consistent basis here in my rural backwater, but I always enjoy seeing what others are doing with it. And quail? Our market buyers don't even know what quail are! LOL! That's what I get for living in the country ...
I love the flavors in this and would enjoy it whether duck or quail was used
I can definitely see how Eat Your Books would be helpful in selecting a recipe with our mystery ingredients! I happen to love your choice and I think duck is a much better pairing with the dates and oranges. The duck looks succulent:)
Deb - the problem is that if we have dates in the house I will eat them!
Joyce - the duck was lovely.
Zosia - I honestly don't know what I did before Eat Your Books!
Susan - I bet it would be lovely with lamb chops too.
Mireille - they were really good, such a lovely balance of warmth, spice and sharpness.
Kim - they were fantastic duck breasts! The same brand we usually buy, but really plump and juicy.
So pleased you're enjoying cooking with us, Alicia, and we love having you bring us gorgeous dishes like this one. I actually love quail, though rarely cook it, and have had this recipe bookmarked for a while. I equally love duck and think that is an excellent substitute. Great choice.
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