Nine Mile Farm - Free Range, Non GMO, Non Soy Fresh Duck Eggs from Happy Birds

S2-Duck Chronicles- Episode Thirteen – New Muscovies and February is Green

0b7aa595142ec7d01fe743fdda90fc0cIn Season two of The Duck Chronicles- Episode Thirteen – New Muscovies and February is Green we check out the new muscovies progress and even some newer ones that were added since the last episode.

The silvers are really pretty.  The day started out with duck anarchy.  Dorothy left the gate open and when I got up there were ducks everywhere.  A quick call of duck duck duck along with a bucket of breakfast sprouts got them up front where they belong.

Fox and Dana the rat patrol have come along well.  They spend their days mostly sleeping and playing. By working with them we have gotten them to be able to hang with our ducks and not really bother them.  They also follow me around the property in my daily tasks, and have done great at not really leaving the 3 acres of fenced area.

The drain system for the water with the willow is a big improvement but more has yet to be done.  We will be planting more trees and building a second drain system to split up the total water.

You also get to see today what happens when ducks get our early; you end up on a bit of an egg hunt.  Today we found three so far.  Nice big ones too.  We also take a look and how we are healing land using quail waste material.

We finish up with a brief look at the quail aviary but if you want to see a full review check out our playlist of the step by step progress here. http://bit.ly/quail-aiv

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We Now Officially Have Quail Eggs for Sale

eggtoolWe are still working out the kinks in our new quail laying operation but we do have eggs.  We are making them available to our customers for 4 dollars per 15 pack.

Be advised if you want to use quail eggs any way other than boiled you really are going to want a quail egg cutting tool like this one.

Quail eggs really do prove that good things come in small packages.  I have been eating them like mad since we started getting them.  We are still in a major duck egg shortage so it has been nice to have these around.   I have a feeling I am going to have to hold some back for myself.

While only about 1/4th the size of a chicken egg they are packed with both flavor and with nutrition.  Some quick nutrition facts about quail eggs are quite amazing, here are a few articles about the benefits and nutrition of quail eggs…

To see if we have eggs available, just get in touch with Dorothy, you can see how to do that here.

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Fried Quail The Way Grandmaw Would Have Made It

My grandmaw that is, perhaps yours too.  Read on and make that call for yourself.

First off like most people I had two wonderful grandmothers.  One was Italian on my mothers side.  She was amazing in the kitchen and raised me more as my mother than my grandmother in my early years.  Anything that woman touched in the kitchen was pure gold.  Sadly she left us way to young, the consequences of her one true vice, smoking.

My fathers mother is where this recipe came from.  She was equally a second mother to me and taught me a lot about what to do and what not to do in the kitchen.  Sadly both by example.  She was old country Ukrainian as in actually came over in the early 1900s old enough to remember “the old country”.  The woman could bake anything as though an angle cooked it and the ethinic food don’t let me get started on it, wow I miss it. Meat though?  As in steak, roast beef, pork chops, etc.  The woman murdered meat.

Everything was cooked to oblivion, there was a saying at Sunday dinner, “Thank God for Gravy”.   This was a deep seated and irreversible consequence of her living at a time with no refrigeration.  Meat was to be cooked to death to make sure death wasn’t the result of consuming it.

Her saving grace with meats?  Anything deep fried.  How a Ukrainian Grandmother in Pennsylvania came to this following recipie for frying chicken which is about a southern as it gets, she never told me.  But last night I was thinking of her and since I just culled some of our male Texas A&M quail I decided to dust off the memory of her chicken and try it will quail.  The only additions I added were I used some Keith Snow Grilled Chicken Seasoning in the Flour and I didn’t use butter milk.  That makes it better, but this was spur of the moment decision and we didn’t have any.  Since it was quail, I also used quail eggs vs. chicken eggs.

Here is what you do, Part the quail out into quarters.  Split the breasts in half and take the leg and thy as individual pieces.  Make a two station coating set up.  One plate with flour, salt, pepper and any seasoning  you want.  This is where I added some Keith Snow grilled chicken seasoning.    In the other use cracker crumbs.  Saltines, you can buy them or do what I did, put some crackers in a ziplock bag and roll them with a mason jar.  Just like grandmaw did.

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Next in a bowl beat one egg with about an equal amount of butter milk.  I used 5 quails eggs about the same as one chicken egg.  Well four actually one was  double yolk, poor little quail who laid that thing!

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Next dip your pieces into the egg mix, then roll in flour.  Now dip in egg again, and roll in cracker crumbs.  Here is another deviation, my grandmother would do all this in the morning, then put the pieces in the fridge till dinner.  This makes the breading really stick beautifully!  You can even do this and put them on a try in the freezer.  Once solid vacuum seal and you have take out and fry ready to go chicken, done this way the breading really holds up beautifully.  Since it was 6PM and I was hungry I went strait to the frying pan.

Now pay attention this is important.  No non stick teflon coated crap, no canola oil, none of that new fangeled crap as granny called it.  You melt enough lard into a well seasoned cast iron skillet so that the lard will come up about half way on the sized pieces you are frying.  Get the oil to a medium heat.  Put your pieces in, for your breasts go meat side down first, ALWAYS or you get your hand smacked.  I can still hear her over my shoulder saying, always the thick side first.

Fry to golden brown, turn and do the same.  Now if you are doing big pieces you may need to put them in a pan with a rack at the bottom to keep them from sitting in grease and put in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes to finish them though.  For quail though they are small and done right away.

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Take the pieces and set them on paper towel to drain.  Grandmaw used old news paper rather than waste a “good paper towel” but we don’t really use news paper and sorry grandmaw not hip on news print chemicals.  But the 1980s were a different time were they not?

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Now quail are some small little birds but as you can see done this way they make a decent meal at just one bird per person as part of a full meal.  Add some vegetables, some sweet potato fries and a salad and this would be bangin.  That said it was late and we had been at the movies, Dorothy didn’t want any so I didn’t bother with sides and just ate all of it.

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Final thoughts on what I would suggest differently.

  • The coating did stick really well, hot grease helps with this a lot but not too hot least it brown to fast but a day in the fridge is a good idea it will stick even better.
  • Though the coating held up well it crumpled a lot when eating the breast pieces, you have to contort those little things a lot to get the meat off the bone.  I would take a few moments to bone the breast pieces next time.  The leg quarters, work just fine though.
  • This was really good but saltine crackers are not that flavorful.  I did it this way as a tribute to grandmaw, if you are going to do crackers, butter crackers or ritz style have more flavor.

But what about Paleo Jack

While it is true this was NOT paleo it was not that bad as a once in a while treat and hey, grandmaw deserves to be paid tribute to at times.  In the end it was not a lot of carbs really but yea higher than something I would eat often.

Fear not though my caveman and cavewomen followers, my paleo version is coming.  Not yet but I will leave you with these ingreedents,

  • Bacon
  • Hard Parmesan Cheese
  • Almond Meal
  • Pork Rinds
  • Amaranth Flour

Honestly this will taste better and be about 2 carbs per piece of quail.  If you just get creative I bet you can figure out exactly what to do but my official recipe will come soon.

One Addition

If you really want to make this a forget healthy eating for a day and just have a glorious treat, mix a butter and flour roux with some of the lard, add salt and course cracked pepper and make white gravy!  When you work hard all the time you can treat yourself to such things from time to time and not feel bad about it.

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Using a Quail Egg Cracking Tool

eggtoolCracking quail eggs is a bit different than cracking a chicken egg.  You can do it with a knife if you are really skilled but given this tool does it perfectly every single time and only costs about 9 dollars, it is the way to go.  You can get one here, http://amzn.to/1PhA4fE

While I did this video to show you how this little tool works today I am scrambling my eggs with left over skirt steak, a bit of salsa and cheese.  Yum!

Please excuse the early morning hair style!

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Making the Perfect Sunny Side Up or Over Easy Quail Eggs

We should be offering quail eggs to our customers in another week or two.  With that in mind we are going to put a few videos about using them so that every customer knows what to expect and has a great experience with these fantastic eggs.  Right now frankly since the ducks are not laying enough, I am hording our first quail eggs for my own breakfast and snacking.

Today we discuss how to make quail eggs either sunny side up style of over easy.  It is a simple life hack, re-purposing a mason jar ring for an egg ring.  Sure you can spend money on a official egg ring but to me that doesn’t really make much sense.

Quail eggs are tiny but that isn’t the only thing that makes them different.  They tend to easily have whits and yolks seperate.  This is no problem for scrambled eggs or boiled ones but if you are trying them sunny side up or over easy, it can be.

What you end up with is often long strung out thin whites on one side of the pan and lonely yolks on the other.  The solution is called an egg ring.  Now you an buy a set for 12 dollars or more or do what we do and just use a mason jar ring.  A large ring is perfect for 5 eggs, a small mouth ring works well for 3.

Next time we will talk about cracking quail eggs and why you will really want to get the tool you see me crack and egg with at the beginning of this video.

Here are a couple pictures of the end result.

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