Pickled Quail Eggs
Don’t let those training quail eggs go to waste. Turn them into a great snack with this pickling recipe
It’s pretty much inevitable. Your dog training quail have reached that age of maturity when the hens begin to lay eggs, and before you know it, you’re up to your armpits in quail eggs with barely any idea of what to do with them. I remember the first year I raised these birds and the utter shock when, seemingly out of nowhere, all 28 hens started laying eggs simultaneously. I went from one or two eggs per day to filling a forty-egg flat every 48 hours.
It was my wife, Jocelyn, who figured that we should pickle a bunch of them. Over a few weeks, we poured over pickled egg recipes, taking the very best aspects of each one to make our own unique variation. It took some time, a bit of tinkering, and a lot of hard-boiled quail eggs, but eventually, we created a home-run recipe that solved the problem of having a surplus of quail eggs on hand.
After trying this recipe, I strongly encourage you to explore different ingredients, methods, and ideas for pickling quail eggs. If nothing else, use our recipe as a template and dive into this venture with the highest optimism possible. After all, variety is the spice of life.
Pickled Quail Egg Recipe
Ingredients
- 40-50 boiled quail eggs
- 3-4 500 mL Mason jars
- 1 clove garlic per jar
- 1 bay leaf per jar
- 1 pearl onion per jar, sliced thinly but not diced
- 6 cups white wine vinegar
- ½ tsp coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 2 tbsp pickling salt
- 2 tsp peppercorn
- Chopped dill as much or as little as you’d like
- 1 tsp hot pepper flakes
Instructions
- Start with hard boiling a batch of eggs. I prefer to put my quail eggs in a pot with water and let them all come up to a boil together rather than put them into already boiling water. A quail egg is perfectly hard-boiled in about five minutes.
- Get another large pot and fill it with water, then bring it to a boil. Place all the jars you intend to use in the boiling water and leave them there for about ten minutes. Use tongs to remove them.
- Let the eggs cool down after they’ve been boiled. You can do this one of two ways. Either remove the eggs and put them in a bowl of ice water, or remove the pot from the burner and let the water and eggs cool to room temperature together. Once this has been achieved, carefully shell the eggs. A pair of quail egg scissors will aid in the process. Yes, they are a real thing.
- By this point, your jars are boiled, your eggs are shelled, and you’re in good shape. Next, except for the bay leaves, eggs, garlic cloves, and pearl onions, combine your white wine vinegar with all the other ingredients in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Boil for about five to six minutes.
- Add a bay leaf to each jar, and then add the chopped dill, the eggs, one sliced onion, and one garlic clove to each jar. Fill the jars almost to the brim.
- Once your brine has boiled for the allotted time, pour it into each jar using a funnel. Trust me on this one. Seal the jars and let them sit at room temperature.
- Once this process is complete, I cannot recommend enough that you let the eggs sit in the brine for at least two weeks. This will give them enough time to absorb all the flavours and truly take on that delicious taste you have been searching for. These things are a real crowd-pleaser and usually fly off the tray at social events.
