Call of the Wild
(Page 3 of 4)
September/October 2006
By Ken Hoyt
Preheat oven to 300°F.
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Preheat a large sauté pan over the highest temperature. Coat quail breasts generously with olive oil, then season both sides with salt and pepper.
Place quail breasts into pan skin side down. Leave flame on high long enough for the pan to recover its heat, then turn flame down to medium or medium high. The object is to sear the breasts quickly so they stay rare but the skin is dark golden brown. Once you’ve achieved that, remove breasts and place them skin side up on a small sheet pan. Set aside.
In a saucepan, reduce chicken stock by half; then add red wine and reduce by half again. Salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
In a separate sauté pan, melt 2 to 3 tablespoons butter. Add spinach and lightly sauté until brightly colored and wilted. Remove from heat and cover. Set aside.
Pour off any fat from the sauté pan used to sear the quail. Add wine-stock reduction to the pan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat. Whisk in 2 tablespoons cold butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Place breasts, spinach and sauce, along with 6 plates for serving, in the oven for 5 to 6 minutes.
Divide spinach among the 6 plates, placing it in a 3-inch-diameter circle in the center. Place each quail breast on top of spinach. Spoon red-wine sauce over the breast and around the plate.
Buying Buffalo
The National Bison Association’s “Certified American Buffalo” seal assures customers that the meat they’re buying comes from producers who adhere to a USDA-audited program. This guarantees that the meat can be traced to the ranches of origin, and that animals were never given growth hormones or fed low levels of antibiotics or animal byproducts.
Eating Meat, Mindfully
Every time I visit the supermarket, I see the products of our food system: fatty, hormone-injected, often colorless meat that’s straight from a factory, not a farm. I’ll pass, though I do eat meat.
I buy my meat from farmers and ranchers who are committed to raising animals in humane and healthful ways. By eating grass-fed beef, roasted free-range chicken, elk chili and smoked duck, I celebrate the lands and the animals of my Idaho home.
I also want at least part of the responsibility for getting meat to be strictly my own. Each fall I hunt and stock my freezer for the year with elk, deer and duck. For eating, nothing better connects me to the cycle of life and death. I call this being a mindful meat eater.
Becoming a mindful meat eater means acknowledging that life feeds on life, that regardless of our diet, all food has a cost. Even those who shun animal products cannot escape this, whether it’s through loss of wildlife habitat to plant grain fields, poisoning by pesticide use, or insects and animals killed to protect organic crops from damage.