Quail with pears and glazed onions

In December we only have one thing on our minds, Christmas! As there are several special meals to prepare on those days and we are eager to see proposals to think about it, Leti, author of Revealing Flavors , brings us a perfect recipe to stay well with friends and family, which without major complications results in a delicacy , quail with pears accompanied by delicious glazed onions.

I don't know if you have noticed, but... Christmas is here!

If until now some of them had managed to ignore the shelves full of Christmas sweets in supermarkets, the toy catalogs at the school gates and the hints from mothers and mothers-in-law about who is preparing Christmas Eve dinner this year, I am afraid that from Now it's going to be impossible to ignore.

And it is that we are already fully entering a shopping spiral, Christmas dinners with all the friends, family and WhatsApp groups to which you are lucky enough to belong, lights and nougat ads left and right, but since we are not going to be able to avoid it.... let's enjoy it!

Take advantage of eating a lot, we'll be on a diet in January, drink in moderation, spend time with friends and family (yes, "el cuñao" also counts as family), play with the little ones, watch Christmas movies on TV, prepare cookies and then Eat them, go shopping at the last minute so you don't find the gift you're looking for, go to party favors on New Year's Eve... and everything that makes you happy.

And if until now you had not thought about the Christmas menu and now the bull has caught you and you don't know what to prepare for the family, here is an idea, which has it all, because it is easy, cheap, it will make you look like a real cookers in front of your diners and on top of that you can leave it prepared the day before and thus avoid last-minute stress.

Do you want to see what it is about? Well, let's go for the recipe.

Le Creuset Evolution round cocotte , Le Creuset skillet pan , and Nezumi plates by Tokyo Design Studio .

Ingredients

• 4 clean quails
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 200 ml of white wine
• 200ml of water
• Salt and pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• Olive oil
• 2 ripe but firm pears

For the glazed onions:

• 18 French onions or shallots
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 spoon of sugar
• 125ml of water
• salt and pepper

Elaboration

For the glazed onions

1. We start by peeling the onions. Put a saucepan on the fire with water and when it boils add the onions and blanch them for 1 minute. After this time we drain and peel them. You will see that this way they peel very easily.
2. Next, put the oil and butter in a frying pan , or in a skillet in my case, and when they bubble, add the sugar and then the onions and sauté them, turning them over, being careful not to break them, to that they brown well on all sides.
3. Once they are golden, salt and pepper them and add the water.
4. Cover the pan and leave them on the heat for about 40 minutes, until the onions are tender, but keep their shape, and the liquid has evaporated. We booked.

We continue preparing the quails

1. We start by cleaning the quails well, if they have any remaining feathers or viscera.
2. When we have them clean, season them with salt and pepper, both inside and out, and using kitchen string , we tie their legs, so that they maintain their shape during cooking.
3. Cover the bottom of the cocotte with olive oil, 3 or 4 tablespoons are enough, and heat it over medium heat.
4. Once the oil is very hot, we are putting the quails in the cocotte, in as many batches as necessary so that they fit loosely, and we brown them for a few minutes on both sides, until a crust forms that seals them and prevents lose juices during cooking.
5. Once they are golden, we remove them from the cocotte and in the same oil, removing part of it if it was too much, we add the onion cut into small cubes.
6. Sauté for a few minutes, until we see that it is tender, but without taking color, and then add the wine and, with a spatula or wooden spoon , gently scrape the bottom of the cocotte to recover the juices and remains that have adhered to the her and thus take advantage of all its flavor ( we deglaze ).
7. Raise the heat so that the alcohol in the wine evaporates.
8. Return the quails to the cocotte and add the water, the bay leaf and the garlic clove that we will have crushed in the mortar .
9. We put the lid on the cocotte, lower the heat to a minimum, and cook for approximately 15 minutes.
10. While the quails are cooking, peel the pears with the help of a sharp knife , cut them in half and remove the seeds (with the spoon to make balls it is phenomenal).
11. Once the 15 minutes have elapsed, we add the pears to the cocotte and cook everything for 20 more minutes.
12. After this time we check the cooking point of the meat. If it is still a little hard, let it cook for another 5 or 10 minutes.
13. When we see that the meat is tender, we add the onions that we had reserved and let it cook together for a couple of minutes so that the flavors are well integrated.

Take advantage!

Evolution Le Creuset round cocotte and Nezumi plates by Tokyo Design Studio .

Grades

• Like all stews, this dish can be prepared in advance, in this way we can not only advance work in the kitchen, but also the flavors of the stew will be more established and it will be much tastier.
• If the amount of onions that I indicate seems too much for the dish, you can prepare half, or prepare the amount that I indicate and keep the remaining ones in the fridge, since they keep perfectly and are a perfect accompaniment for almost any type of meat.
• We can replace the 200ml of water indicated in the recipe with the same amount of chicken broth.

I hope you like the recipe, that at home the truth is that it has succeeded, and that you prepare what you prepare for these days, enjoy the food and all yours very much. May they be days of great happiness...