Recipe by: Sara Oteri – Masterchef Contestant
Serves: 4
Ingredients
Sweet corn Puree:
2 tbsp butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
3 corn cobs
200ml chicken stock
1 tbsp miso paste
Quail:
4 whole quail
1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and crushed
salt and pepper, to taste
Corn Kernels:
1 corn cob
Blackberry Vinaigrette:
150g blackberries
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp caster sugar
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C
To make the sweet corn puree, place butter in a saucepan and set over medium heat to melt. Add shallot and garlic and cook until translucent. Cut corn from cobs and add to saucepan.
Fry for 5 minutes, add stock and miso paste and cook until tender. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. Pass through a sieve and set aside, keeping warm.
To prepare the quail, remove legs, preserving breasts on the crown. Remove the wings at the joint. Place grapeseed oil in a frypan and set over high heat. Season legs and breasts with coriander seeds, salt, and pepper and fry breasts in frypan until well coloured, about 3 minutes on each breast. Add legs and cook for 1 minute until golden.
Transfer frypan to the oven and cook for 4 minutes, until legs are cooked through. Remove legs and set aside. Return pan to oven to cook breasts for a further 3-4 minutes until cooked through.
Remove from oven, remove from pan and set aside, covered, to rest.Return quail frypan to high heat. Add corn cob and cook until golden on all sides. Remove corn cob from pan and cut kernels off.
Set kernels aside.
To make the blackberry vinegar, add blackberries to the frypan and toss to coat in quail cooking oil. Add red wine vinegar and sugar and toss until sugar has dissolved.To serve, place some corn puree on the serving plates.
Carve quail breasts from the crown and add to the plates, with the legs. Add corn kernels and drizzle with blackberry vinaigrette
(Masterchef.com.au, 2013)