Brochettes de Caille - Quail Kebabs

The language side of my brain has been fully occupied on something other than English, which is the reason why I have not been writing much. I'm sorry about that, it won't last forever. I just have to give this language a hard push while I can. Please bear with me!

This morning Loic and I took the time to go to the market together where my volailler was moving some quail brochettes - how could we resist them? The breast meat and two legs per brochette made up one bird on a stick each, alternated by chunks of poitrine nature, which is unsmoked bacon. They promised to roast up quite nicely. I painted them with an olive oil based herb paste, and cooked them on a bed of flowered thyme (80 cents a bunch), keeping the dish covered with tin foil until the last few minutes, to keep the thyme from doing anything more than toasting to a nutty crisp. The crushed toasted thyme was used to mix up a flavored butter after the meal, which has been put away for a dinner planned for later in the week - I tasted a little bit and it will be perfect on fish - I can't wait!

The brochettes today were served with rice seasoned with minced mild fresh garlic and parsley, and the plate was followed by a simple salad. Loic mused that we could easily prepare them at home, carving up the birds ourselves, but a quick calculation tells me that my time is better spent on something else. I guess if we collect enough of these nice metal sticks that come with the brochettes, we might start doing more of this kind of thing. I think I like this presentation of a quail better than serving the whole bird. It's a nice festive and easy way to serve it for a lunch or a nice informal supper. The whole legs are on the scale of chicken wings, and the breast meat divides into two bites per breast. One brochette per person is enough. When I serve the whole birds, I always serve two per person.