It’s always amused me how easy it is to find copious supplies of quail eggs, but it’s next to impossible to find a steady, reliable and economical supply of nicely fattened quail in Manila or most parts of the Philippines, for that matter. What do they do with the old hens? And what of the chicks that turn out to be boys(?!), how do they get rid of those? When I have managed to get my hands on local quail meat, I’ve made delicious dishes like this deep-fried quail with five spice salt from years back. I also enjoy a quail adobo, and frankly, I hope someone out there passes me a tip on how to get my hands on fat, juicy, tasty local quail meat at reasonable prices. Please. Or maybe I should figure out how to raise/fatten them up myself. :)
At any rate, I purchased this box of 100 quail eggs at the market last Saturday and decided to do some quail egg experiments. When I asked the vendor how long it took to boil a quail egg, she said just 3 minutes… which sounded like a long time to me. A bit of googling a few seconds ago, after the fact, recommends boiling them from 2.5-4 minutes, which also seemed a bit long for me, but of course one has to wonder how large the particular quail eggs are… as these ones in the photos above are quite petite. At any rate, I did the obvious thing and put several eggs into a pot and decided to time them and see what the results would be…
Starting from the left, that was an egg put in cold water, brought up to a boil over a heat diffuser (my pan was tiny) which meant it took some time to fully heat up, but as soon as it boiled, counted 10 seconds, removed it and plunged it into an ice bath to stop the cooking. It was a perfectly cooked hard boiled, or perhaps medium boiled egg with a cooked but still moist yolk. The second egg from the left was put into warm water, brought up to a boil, and after a few seconds (say 10 seconds) plunged into ice water and it was a beautifully done medium-soft boiled egg. The third egg I removed after 1 minute of boiling, and the last egg after 2 minutes of boiling. Clearly, the last egg is overcooked, with a yolk that was just nasty.
Here’s a close-up of the second egg that I liked the most.
They are the cutest things. And 5 (not 6 like the photo) are the equivalent of one average chicken egg. While the quail eggs have the same calories and protein by weight as chicken eggs, they have nearly twice the cholesterol apparently due to the higher yolk to egg white ratio according to one website. However, they are said to possess more vitamins, iron and potassium that the average chicken eggs. The bottom line, yummy and nutritious, but because of the cholesterol, something you should only indulge in every so often along with a diet of regular chicken eggs as well.
We tried frying them in some butter and they turned out brilliantly. Opens up lots of possibilities for dishes and unusual plating and presentation.
A bit of finesse is needed to crack open the eggs without breaking the yolks, but once you “master” the skill it’s easy peasy from then on…
At PHP140 for a box of 100 quail eggs, they come out to PHP1.40 each, a bit more expensive than chicken eggs (5 quail eggs for PHP7 vs. some PHP5-6 for a chicken egg). Now I am thinking quail’s egg leche flan, little mini eggs benedict or even a mini-Scotch egg as they have on the menu at Blackbird recently…
Here’s a photo of the box in case you needed contact details of the supplier. And no, this is NOT A SPONSORED POST and I get nothing for writing about this particular product.
27 Responses
hi, you should try the quail “bird” , yummy !
Rosedmd, I have a couple of recipes for quail, in the archives and one link in the post above.
I’ve seen quail egg balut posted by an Instagrammer from California. Here’s the link https://instagram.com/p/tjaRSIguY8/
one of our favorite things to do when my dad’s company was growing quails was to put peeled, hardboiled quail eggs inside quails before barbecuing them. fooled all the other kids (and some adults, too!) into thinking that the quails were about to lay eggs had we not cooked them ;-)
Tandoori quail, MM. Delish.
Quail egg carbonara?
I used to buy quail eggs over at UBC..very cheap!
MM…make Ottolenghi’s potato salad. It is not salad weather here now but it won’t stop me from doing his salad if I had quail eggs now.
Another one …baby egg yolk ravioli….got to have patience on this one though but worth the effort.
I wonder if quail eggs would make good salted eggs…maybe not for it has only 5 gm. of fat compared to duck eggs which has 10 gm. of fat. so it won’t probably be as oily or magmamantika.
MM…I am thinking of making a lighter version of scotch eggs using fish like in making bola bola in soup…but then again you said not to mix 2 proteins in one meal. So I will save this for the next few months! Then I will go all out and start with misua with bola bola stuffed with quail egg.
Yeah, I know, ms Connie! Having misua with bola bola isn’t exactly what one has after months of eating bland food!
Pickled quail eggs. There is a Vietnamese Store that makes this locally in LA as a condiment for their hot dog in a bun.
My mind is stuck in time, when almost half a century ago quail eggs could still be harvested in the wild, and the birds could be bought, legs tied in bunches from walking street vendors and I would look forward to my mom’s quail adobo, which I can’t quite replicate. And I thought quails were endangered! At least now they are in coops albeit eating GMA corn vs. pecking from free range foraging.
BettyQ: I love bolabola with misua!
Maybe healthy people need not be afraid of eggs.
While eggs have taken a bad rap for cholesterol, solid research studies have shown that individuals eating eggs once a day did not increase the incidence of heart disease when compared to the control group in the research population . Moderate consumption such as an egg a day will not increase risk for heart disease in healthy people and can be a part of a healthy diet. It is more the mix and proportion of the kind of fats ( good oils vs. bad oils) in the diet that affect total cholesterol and harmful LDL cholesterol.
Eggs also contain nutrients that may help reduce risk for heart disease such as vitamins B12 and D, riboflavin and folate.
It would be a different story though for people who already have heart disease or diabetes and have problems with high cholesterol. For these people and who love quail eggs as abundantly available as they are, you may want to ring up your docs!
MM, of the 1st to 3rd egg, which was the easiest to peel?
ami, after shocking them in cold water, they were all reasonably easy to peel. You have to get to the “skin” below the eggshell, and when you’ve punctured that, it’s easy going as far as peeling is concerned.
maybe you should contact Clanvim Agri Corp to see if they supply quail meat as well as provide answers to you quail questions…..
jakbkk, I have actually called a few quail growers (mostly for eggs) and all have said fattened quail are not a priority of theirs… So I am toying with the idea of fattening my own. :)
When we were small just a few blocks from our house was a quail raiser so mom would usually buy quail eggs for us for school baon. Scotch pugo egg was also a mainstay.
Layers are probably not the best for eating. They get tough with age, and with chickens, they’re pumped full of antibiotics if they are not organic. We often buy quail eggs in the Balintawak market for around P100 to P130 a box, less 5 pesos if you exchange boxes.
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