Mom made Quail East Indian Style; Moile Anyone?

Even if you’re not wandering in the desert with Moses, quail is pretty good fare to put on your plate. How did the Israelites cook the quail? We don’t really know. Numbers 11:32 in the Bible says “they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp” implying they salted and cured them by air-drying. You know, hot desert air!

Anyway, how do we cook quail? Well, you could just make a simple stew like we do with beef or chicken. Or you could make a roast like mom did last time (will add the recipe soon), or you could make a yummy tasty quail moile. Now doesn’t that rhyme! It’s fusion time!

PS. If you’re wondering what a moile is, it’s a tangy spicy curry made by Mumbai’s East Indian community. We usually make it of chicken, duck, surmai (kingfish) or red pumpkin. But our family loves combining cuisines and flavors to make different dishes. So step in quail. I’ve made a moile curry of rabbit too when I was visiting friends in France. They gave me a choice of cooking rabbit or wild hen. I’d not eaten rabbit before that, so naturally, I had to choose rabbit and make a moile of it!

Why did we think of quail? Mom often told us of when Grandpa Leslie and his younger brother Uncle Hector would go to the Borivali market and buy quail for Sunday lunches. Granny Catherine used to make a khudi or moile out of it. Fast forward a few decades and mom resurrected the cooking of quail. She makes roasts and moile, and we’ve seen the quail show up at the Christmas table off and on for a few years now. (Other years we see duck moile or duck roast or the stuffed chicken roast.)

But anyway, what I’m getting to is you can use any good meat with a moile curry – from the usual kingfish, chicken and duck, to rabbit or pumpkin and other game meats.

See How to Make Our Quail Moile

Step 1 – Brown the Quail

We buy the quail and cut in four pieces each. You can cut into more pieces, but since it’s a small sized bird, we prefer just four. It’s almost the size of medium chicken pieces.

Start by caramelizing some sugar, add the quail and allow to brown on all sides for a while. Once it’s browned, it’ll release nice juices that you can use to flavor the onions in the next step. Remove the cooked quail onto a plate and set aside. We now start with the rest of the ingredients.

Step 2 – Cook the Onions and Spices

Cut the chilies diagonally and the garlic and ginger into long strips (not too thin). Cut the onions into rounds.

Add the onion rounds to the pot that has the leftover quail juices and start to brown them. Once the onions are translucent, add the ginger, garlic and chilies followed by the bottle masala, garam masala and salt. Mix well and allow to cook for 5 to 10 minutes.

Step 3 – Cook the Quail

Add the quail back to the pot. You can add some fried or pan-roasted potatoes at this point if you like. We didn’t this time. Mix well with the cooked masala onion mixture. Add water to cover and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. Once ready serve with roti and salad. It also goes well with rice, foogias, handbreads, and almost any other form of bread.

Liked the recipe? Comment and let us know! Questions? Comment and mom or me will answer in a day or two.

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