The Quail

1. Marinate the quail in grappa for 4-6 hours. Be generous; drown those birdies in the booze.
2. When it’s roasting time, remove the birds from the grappa and discard the grappa. Using scissors, cut the bird open lay each one flat on a baking sheet. Generously salt the birds, and sprinkle them with fennel pollen. Roast at 350F/180C for 30 minutes

The Rice

1. Use an aborio or bomba variety of rice as these absorb moisture without coming apart like a basmati rice would do. Plan on approximately ½ cup of rice per person, and you’ll need about 1 1/2 cups of stock per ½ cup of rice. Use a vegetable or chicken stock.
2. The saffron is optional, but I love saffron so for me, its obligatory. Place a few strands of saffron in a small glass of white wine and let steep while you cook the rice.
3. Place the rice in a flat-bottomed pan, like a paella pan. I’m hesitant to use the word paella here because people make all different types of paellas and I don’t want to get into a what-is-an-authentic-paella-pissing match, ok? Let’s just call it crispy rice.
4. Much as you would with a risotto, add a glug of olive oil, turn on the heat to medium and toast the rice. That means roll it around in the oil until everything gets hot and toasty, but don’t brown the rice.Start adding the warm stock to the rice, enough stock to cover the pan and float the rice.
5. Keep adding stock and stirring the rice as the pan dries out. You want the rice to be about ¾’s cooked. (How to tell if the rice is nearly done: taste a few grains, they should be soft almost halfway through, with still a bit of hard crunch in the middle.) This should take about 10-12 minutes.
6. Add the white wine and saffron and the remaining stock to the pan, stir in the frozen peas if you are using them and put the pan in the oven on a rack above the quail. The liquid will evaporate and the rice will become brown and crispy on top.

The Garlic Chips

1. Peel 3 to 4 large cloves of garlic. Using a mandolin, thinly slice the garlic. (I use the 2.0mm setting on my mandolin.)
2. In a small pan, add enough olive oil to form a shallow pool to fry the garlic. They need to be able to float in the oil. Heat the oil to 350F/180C (use a thermometer when you fry things, its hard to do this by eye or feel). Add the garlic slices and fry for 1-2 minutes until they just start to turn golden. Remove the slices from the oil and drain. Turn the oil off, but don’t discard it because you are going to fry the garlic slices one more time right before serving.

Assembly

1. Remove the quail from the oven and liberally dust with the spicy smoked paprika.
2. Turn the oven on to broil and broil the surface of the rice. Not too close to the broiler coils; but close enough to give the rice an extra crispy finish.
3. Reheat the oil to 350F/180C or even a bit hotter. Add the garlic chips and fry again until golden, about 30-45 seconds. Drain the chips and discard the oil.
4. Remove the rice from oven, arrange the quail on top of the rice, cover with the garlic chips, open a nice bottle of chilled white wine, and now eat!