Friday Dinner

Due to my terrible, terrible exam yesterday and the awful days of study leading up to it, my fridge was quite empty this morning. So my dad and I went to Box Hill in the morning and came back loaded with bags and bags of food to keep us going this week. We got quails, cabbage, chicken, capsicums, onions, garlic, eggplants, various cheeses and a whole bunch of other delicious stuff. Fantastic!

Last week, my diet consisted mainly of caffiene, Diet Lime Coke and sugar, so I thought it was high time for a nutritional, nurturing meal. (This is also in anticipation of the onslaught my body will be receiving in preparation for my next, and final exam, one week from today.)

18. Lacquered Quail (Low Fat)
19. Japanese Flavoured Sour-Sweet Cabbage (Low Fat)

Do you know how fun it is to spatchcock quails? You can just use kitchen scissors because their little bones are not strong at all. Just shove the scissors in and cut on either side of the backbone. It's very therapeutic! I actually bought eight quail, but my brother was working and not joining us for dinner, so I shoved two of them in the freezer for a future low-fat solo dinner.


Adri (my friend who saw this photo): omg the quails DO look like they are dancing

This is really, very very easy and quick. You have to boil up some pomegranate molasses and soy sauce in a saucepan, then pour it over the waiting, flattened quails and shove them in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Easy peasy! Whilst they're cooking, you can make the cabbage, which is shredded cabbage stir-fried in a bit of sesame oil, with mirin, soy sauce and rice vinegar. Nigella says "sprinkle over some Japanese seven-spice mixture if you've any to hand". What a silly thing to say, "IF you've any to hand"... we've always got it! I'm terribly addicted to it! It's called shichimi togarashi or nanami togarashi in Japanese, and it comes in a small glass cylindrical container with a red lid. Fabulous stuff.


Quail & I - Nanami Togarashi on the right

You know, this meal didn't taste low fat at all. It was delicious, filling and gratifying! Ooh and I just realised it was low carb too! Go me for eating super-healthy! (And more to the point, go Nigella for writing a fab recipe!) For some reason, I found it easy to eat two quails, but my parents had one and a half each, and were already full. Bizzare. Well at least now we've got a leftover cooked one sitting in the fridge with some leftover cabbage. That is SO my dinner tomorrow night.

One thing to note though, quails are hard to eat. We tried with knifes and forks at first, but there were so many little bones in there that after about 30 seconds we gave up and started ripping the poor creatures apart with our hands and teeth, Shrek style. I guess this is another reason why they're good for low-fat eating - because they're just too difficult to eat in huge quantities!


Aftermath (this was all our quails, not just mine!)