Small, inconspicuous and speckled. So are quail eggs, an increasingly common alternative in our kitchens to the popular chicken eggs. Although they are a product that does not change much in flavor, yes it does in size and aspect.
In fact, it is their specks or spots that most characterize them —besides their size— and this kind of mosaic that is made on their shell is part of the raison d’être of these mini eggs.
As is logical, the quail eggs that we find today in our supermarkets they are all farm and domesticated quail. Exactly the same thing that happens with chicken eggs.
However, their colors are different. With the chicken egg we will always be in white tones —if the layer is light— or brown —if the layer is dark. Besides that, there are some chickens that they lay colored eggsas is the case of blue, with the Araucanian chicken.
What does not usually change excessively is the size, although there are different categories, only the traditional chick eggs being smaller. Even so, they are much larger than quail eggs, which Karlos Arguiñano explains to us in his program the reason for the color.
When making a recipe for spinach and dates, where he later crowns the final result with quail eggs, the popular and television Basque chef gives the reasons for this singular and recognizable color in quail eggs.
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As is logical, seeing that these are very delicate animals, the Camouflage was going to be important. For this reason, Karlos Arguiñano clarifies that the mottling of quail eggs is not a coincidence: “the quails lay on the ground and to mislead their predators they have these colors.”
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