To pluck the quail, grab the bird by the feet and dip it vigorously in the boiling water. Swirl the beast around, bobbing it up to make sure water is getting through the feathers to the delicate pinkish skin. Undress the beauty and remove delicately the small silky down covering its belly. To uncover the legs, use a whole series of small blows with two fingers, use the thumb of the other hand to retains the fragile pale skin.
Delicate skin. A whole series of tints of pink, pinkish, pinkish, crayfish, straw yellow, pinkish meat, which passes to yellow where the skin is thicker. Where the animal has been wounded, necrosis transforms the flesh into a purplish part, almost ultramarine blue. The flesh is softer there and the broken bone makes the thigh lose. Here the flesh without bone is holding it in place. See how the fold of the thigh and wing is tighter to pluck.
At times the feather does not completely come off and the blue and black tips must be removed. Once the down and the medium top feathers are removed, You could finish with the large feathers on the end of the wing. The smaller ones that form the wing attack are the hard ones to remove. You will shudder to look at this princess rump and you can't help yourself to caress the skin when you remove the peaks stuck in the flesh.
The quail is small in the hand open to the flame that burns the bristles of the bird, an almost transparent hair that shines in the sun. Open the body, remove the spine, remove the organs, save the heart, gizzard, and liver, they make delicious seasoning bits when sautéed in butter. Use them in soups or stews, or keep it for a paté. Then, put it back in the satchel to take a new small body to pluck. A new innocent soul to prepare.
The quails we had passed onto the flame had spread a roasted smell throughout the kitchen. Then the dozen fresh bodies had been prepared with a wine sauce that softened their flesh and diffused a delicate scent into its body. A gripping smell that stirs your desire. An hour later the meat was disposed on the table. The delighted guest chose his piece, finding grace only for the nobleman piece. He always kept a taste for delicate flesh.
It was quite an art of delicacy to watch him wield the knife. It was a delight to see him loosen the joints of the meat, remove the tendons of the thigh hardened by cooking, degrease the entire piece of meat, and leave the main veins aside. When others cut the meat straight, he was entering the bodies to take the tender. The delicate and glorious art of graceful body-punching, flesh tenderize and bone breaker inside the hell kitchn.