17 May 2009

How many quail eggs does it take to make one omelet?


Yesterday Whole Foods Market was displaying these quail eggs among the peppers, carrots, mushrooms and the like. The idea must have been to attract attention to a new product by creating a stark contrast; it worked with me. I couldn't pass the opportunity to try out an omelet made with quail eggs.

They are the eggs of Japanese or Coturnix quail. The egg shells are covered with interesting splotches of brown.


And they are tiny compared to chicken eggs.


Although the egg shell was thin, the membrane inside was difficult to puncture; as a result, the process of getting everything out of the eggs was a bit messy and slow. Notice that the insides of some eggs were greenish blue.


Here is the finished omelet stuffed with mushrooms. The red thing is paprika. I also added black pepper and sage. It was good, but I don't know if I can tell it from an omelet made with chicken eggs in a blind test.


It took 11 quail eggs to make that omelet. I may scramble the remaining 7 eggs for tomorrow morning's breakfast.


xoggoth said...

Apart from the cost I imagine.

Need even more snails' eggs to make an omelet. In these straightened times a recipe book for meals made with common garden slugs/snails might sell quite well, cheap, plentiful and quite nutritious. As long as the neighbour hasn't put pellets down.

JT said...

Once upon a time my son gave me a necklace with a quail egg pendant. Although I thought it a bit weird, I cherish it to this day. Moms are like that. btw, the egg was blown hollow of course.


It must be a very fragile pendant unless they hardened or protected the shell somehow.

fred schueler said...

That was my staple food (more or less) as an undergraduate at Cornell. I was caring for experimental Coturnix quail, and the eggs were regarded as a waste product. So I took them to my room, scrambled them up in a plastic bag, and heated them with an electric immersion heater in a cup of water. given the grotesqueness of the method of preparation, they were pretty tasty.

aleglot said...

To feel a taste and delicacy of quail eggs, try to soft boil them for 2 minutes or scramble on medium temperature skillet.
I eat them raw every morning with slice of lemon and salt, or with whole grain bread. In this case you take advantage of unique combination of enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and amino accids.
Raw quail eggs support immune system, cleaning cells, help to restore digesting system among many other things.
Take a look at this article and see how quail eggs help to suppress allergies: http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/article/2875/rhinitis.html