Primitive Cooking Techniques: Wood-fire Roasted Quail & Clay Baked Quail Eggs!

If you ever wanted to cook barbeque/open fire smoked food, but do not have extensive tools/equipment's with you then this intrusctable will definitely help you quench your thirst of this smoky-food with no use of much equipment's, just like how i did.

Before we jump into the intrsuctables, lets us know some new information(for atleast someone like me...:D) about Barbeque!

Homo erectus[” an ‘upright man.’ The first of this species to stand up and not crawl on all fours] learns food tastes a lot better cooked on an open flame.

Around 2 million years ago, we find a fella named “Oog” (not his real name) who was a “Homo erectus,He was by no means “strictly honorable or honest” in the modern meaning of the term upright. He was rather crude in his behavior and was known for grabbing his girlfriend (Oogla) by her hair and dragging her into his man cave.

Oog had just ripped a large piece of meat from the alligator he caught and offered it to Oogla, who said – “this is nasty,” and smacked Oog over the head with a rock. In anger, Oog tossed the meat out onto the ground. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck and caused a fire. The fire-roasted alligator meat sent smoke wafting through the air with an enticing aroma.

Unable to resist the delicious smell, the gator meat was eagerly consumed by Oogla and Oog, and this was the first BBQ! To this day, the memory of that smokey aroma is a primeval link that still triggers the same love for fire smoked meat.

A Spanish explorer learned about this method from the Taíno people in the Arawak-speaking Caribbean he was visiting and wrote about it. Returning to Spain, his writings ostensibly became the source of our now used term “Barbecue.”

Source: https://www.caldwellcountybbq.com/blog/evolution-b...

Regardless of what is used to BBQ, whether a modern fancy BBQ grill with all the bells and whistles or a simple charcoal grill, it can be the best you ever had. It is the whole experience of sharing with your family and friends, that primal experience that Oog and Oogla had so very long ago.

Whether a big cut of meat or simply grilling some sausages and burgers, cooking over a natural flame and getting the food infused with the smoke really makes for great tasting food.

Let me give a few words about the technique i adopted to cook:

1. Quail meat - Smoked Wood fire method supported with bricks(rocks in earlier times)

2. Tiny quail eggs - Clay baked wood fire method

In earlier times, humans used rocks/stones to arrange the dome shaped open fire method to cook food especially meat. In urban areas as we don't find rocks or big-sized stones, i have adopted to bricks to make the structure.

Wood fire method:

1. Spread sand at any surface(so that there is no damage on the surface especially terrace). If in case, you do this on ground, you can very well place the bricks directly on the ground leaving the sand part.

2. Arrange bricks on to the sand.

3. Place bricks adjacent to the already laid bricks. This will form a closed enclosure to form a fire pit kind.

4. Make sure you have atleast good deepened place, as the fire pit.

5. Spread chunks of wood, on the bottom and on top of it arrange coconut husk etc so that the fire we put on, catches up easily.

Do keep a bucket of water, somewhat near to your fire pit as a precaution.

For cooking the quail egg, i adopted to an ancient method of cooking eggs where there were no much vessels used by humans.

I poured little water to the clay which i had and once they are slightly soggy i spread the clay on one palm and placed the quail eggs at the centre and then wrapped it with the clay such that they become a ball-shaped.

I placed these balls to dry for sometime and in the meantime in prepared the wood fire.

Once the bricks are placed, i arranged woods to its inside and spread coconut husk on the sides. The dried balls were kept on a piece of paper and placed at the centre of the wood arrangement.

For cooking the quail eggs, there should be full fire and for the meat, it has to be cooked in smoke. So i soaked some wooden pieces in water so that once the quail eggs are cooked i can remove them from the fire and keep the smoked wire ready for the meat.

Alternatives to cook the quail eggs:

Quail eggs are quite tiny, so you may not need much of the shell we create as ball structure. So if you do not have clay with you, we can very well use:

1. Dough (For cooking dum biriyani, dough is used as arrangement at some places in southern part of india).

2. Palm fruit, outer shell.

Once the clay got cooled down, you could very well open and clean up the outer layer and egg shell to consume it.

For quail roast, i wanted to a bit strong yet simple spices so the dry roast gets all the spices absorbed.

So here's the ingredients i opted for:

1. Garam masala powder

2. Cummin and pepper powder

3. Red chilly powder

4. Ginger, garlic paste

5. Curd

6. Salt

7. Cooking oil

Mix them according to your taste bud and spread it across all over the body of the meat and if you wanted to add some herbs like dill etc you could very well insert it inside the body.

So to cook the meat with spices applied i inserted the Skewers across the meat, such that they are easy to hold and can be changed to any position easily when has to be cooked across all the sides.

As i said earlier, once the quail eggs are cooked(you could note the timing details, for cooking). We can drop the soaked wooden pieces on to the fire so that the fire is put off and the smoke starts to come out. At this time, remove the quail eggs and place the quail meat with skewers supported by the side bricks.

1. When you find that smoke does not come up or it got subdued, you may sprinkle few drops of cooking oil on top of the wooden fire.

2. Use a thick and long stick, if in case you have to spread the smoke to a position.

3. I did use a long thick pvc pipe, to blow air onto the smoke.

4. You could also spread the cooking oil onto your meat, so that it drops onto the smoke as well.

My choice for smoked meat, is always a squeeze of lime.