Deviled eggs are wonderful. I love the standard issue recipe, and I love topping them with a pyramid of fish eggs, crumbled pork rinds, bits of chicken skin, shards of country ham, or a smoked oyster.
However, if I may be so bold, I have found two small problems with deviled eggs. If you grab one every time you walk across a room at a dinner party, you will have eaten an omelette’s worth of eggs before sitting down for the meal. Furthermore: the perfect hors d’oeuvre is a single bite. With a deviled egg, you stand there holding the other half, waving around an orthodontic imprint of your incisors while you talk.
Fortunately, I have a solution to solve both issues. Enter the quail egg.
The quail egg has long been a staple of sushi bar fare—and there can be no doubt of their transcendent appeal cracked over salmon roe in a steep-sided nori cup. Perhaps it is because of sushi that I’ve always thought of them as a delicate, high-brow thing.
When I met Brittney Miller, however, I began to see a different side of this diminutive speckled egg. Miller owns Manchester Farms, in Columbia, South Carolina, which is the largest producer of quail eggs in the United States. The business was started by her father in the 1970s.
Throughout the Deep South, according to Miller, pickled quail eggs have become popular as a sort of gas station snack you buy at midnight.
The irony of this fills me with joy. While I have no way to back it up, I want to believe that all around the sugarcane fields and through the byways of the Delta there are men in pickup trucks snacking on dainty pickled quail eggs while cruising home from the Moose Lodge with a belly full of light beer. I love a world in which you park your Ford F-150 and run in for a sack of Beech-Nut chewing tobacco and a half dozen spicy pickled quail eggs.
The single-bite nature of a quail egg is perfect for driving, since you can keep one hand on the wheel at all times. Who wants to drive around chewing through a big ol’ chicken egg? Quail eggs you can pop in your mouth whole.
While you might be tempted to dismiss this as a niche business, the demand for quail eggs is surprisingly large. Miller’s 450-acre farm produces about 12 million quail eggs a year—as well as 4 million meat birds—and she’s expanding.
One of her customers has already bought more than 150,000 fresh eggs to pickle, and he only began to purchase them from Miller in March. “He cooks, peels and then pickles them as a business and sells them to convenience stores within a 100-mile radius of his farm in Alabama.” Miller went on to say that “there are a lot of small producers in each state. I have people buy me jars as they travel and send them to me. So far I’ve got about 20 different versions.”
Why the demand? Quail eggs, in addition to being delicious, are credited with everything from increasing your libido to the breaking up of kidney stones. Spend any amount of time reading up on them and you will note the frequent use of the word “superfood.” Their large yolk to white makes them deliciously rich, and also makes them high in protein. They seem to be easily tolerated by those with egg allergies, and they have great levels of B vitamins and other nutrients.
I was sold. I asked Miller for some recipes for making pickled eggs, and got to work. (They’re great sunny side up, scrambled, and soft boiled, as well. I’m just obsessed with pickling them.)
The only downside in the experience was peeling the eggs, which wasn’t any worse than peeling chicken eggs, but it wasn’t any better either. The inner membrane of a quail egg is a tough little thing, and I took Miller’s advice to include a splash of vinegar in the boiling water, which somewhat ameliorates the clinginess factor. Still, I lost about two out of each dozen I boiled.
Start hot, end cold, let the eggs really cool down in the ice bath, and things ought to go alright.
Certainly, there’s an element of absurdity to peeling these tiny eggs, but you will only feel it the first time you do it, because you will soon discover that you love having a jar of pickled quail eggs in your refrigerator.
They last a long time in the fridge, the National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia says they’re best eaten within three to four months.
I recently had some folks over for brunch. I served some pickled quail eggs that I’d split in half, as if they were deviled eggs, and scooped a little mound of deviled country ham on to each.
A delicious balance of ham and egg with a little pickle in just one bite. It may just be the perfect hors d’oeuvre.
INGREDIENTS:
- 21 Hard boiled quail eggs, peeled
- 1/2 cup Beet juice from canned sliced beets
- 3/4 cup, plus a splash White vinegar
- 1/3 cup Granulated sugar
- 1 tsp Sea salt or kosher salt
DIRECTIONS:
Boil the eggs for 4 minutes with water and a splash of vinegar (or a couple pinches of baking soda)—this helps remove the membrane for easy peeling. Drain the eggs and soak them in ice water for a couple minutes. Roll an egg on its side to break up the shell. Peel the egg from top to bottom starting with the large end under running water.
Add salt to the bottom of a clean mason jar; then fill with eggs. In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar and beet juice to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and whisk in the sugar until dissolved. Carefully pour the hot liquid into the jar, covering the eggs. Place a lid on the jar and allow to cool to room temperature; then refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving.
INGREDIENTS:
- 21 Hard boiled quail eggs, peeled
- 1 1/4 cups, plus a slash White vinegar
- 1 tsp Louisiana style hot sauce
- ½ tsp Cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp Sea salt or kosher salt
DIRECTIONS:
Boil the eggs for 4 minutes with water and a splash of vinegar (or a couple pinches of baking soda)—this helps remove the membrane for easy peeling. Drain the eggs and soak them in ice water for a couple minutes. Roll an egg on its side to break up the shell. Peel the egg from top to bottom starting with the large end under running water.
Add salt and cayenne to the bottom of clean mason jar; then fill with eggs. In a small saucepan, add the hot sauce and vinegar and bring to a boil; then remove from heat. Carefully pour the hot liquid into the jar, covering the eggs. Place a lid on the jar and allow to cool to room temperature; then refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving
