Pickled Quail Eggs....Finally!

We bought a few quail last fall in hopes that they would produce some eggs for me to pickle.  Well, they did....finally...and then we hatched some.  As a matter of fact, we hatched 48 of them.  Now the first batch of babies are laying eggs!  That was step 1 of pickled quail eggs.

Step 2 was when we planted beet seeds last fall.....and harvested them a few weeks ago.  I can't pickle quail eggs without first pickling beets.

So FINALLY....I can begin to see the goal.  I took a day's worth of quail's eggs...

Rinse them well and pull out any that are dirty or cracked.  Then put them in a pan, and pour in enough white vinegar to come halfway up the egg....

Then add enough cold water to well cover the eggs...

Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.  At the end of 5 minutes, pour cold water onto the eggs.  The vinegar in the boiling water, and the cold water shock makes a huge difference in the ease of peeling the eggs.  It also makes some of the eggs lose their spots....

But by following this procedure....you can peel a whole egg in one strip....



And you can do it again and again...

Next take your jar of beet pickle.  By now you have eaten all of the yummy beets from the jar and you have saved the juice.  Put the cooled, rinsed, hardboiled quail eggs into the jar of beet pickle and put it into the fridge.

Look at all of those lovely eggs in that pickle!

Let them sit for a couple of days.....and fix a nice salad.  Maybe home grown bitter greens and some crisp lettuce.  Cut up a home grown cucumber, top it with some sharp cheddar cheese and home grown/smoked bacon.  And then....

Slice that bad boy down.  I think it takes 3 quail eggs per salad.  Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

The flavor contrasts on the salad are devine.  If you like hardboiled eggs in a Macaroni or Potato salad, you should try these.