Memory is a strange bird. Distorted by time, tears and wishful thinking, every memory is a practice in revisionism – and not simply an act of revisiting the past. Still, it’s hard for me to imagine why I would have fabricated a memory about a quail. I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, having dinner in the lively cellar of a restaurant in New York City with the better part of my rowdy Lebanese half of the family. My uncle, working a strong Telly Savalas vibe, picked up his fork and stabbed the golden breast of the bird on his plate. He held it up for the kids to see. Tucked and trussed like a roast hen but with the dimensions of a hamster. I found it deeply disturbing; nobody remembers the event but me.
Like most people who love quail, it’s hard for me to resist ordering it when I spot it on a menu. But while a platter of crisp, juicy buttermilk-fried chicken is my idea of heaven, the love does not extend to fried quail, a dish that’s gained mysterious popularity. With fried quail, the crust-to-meat ratio is all wrong, and because it’s harder to control the heat when frying, the meat tends to end up overdone, which is the perfect way to ruin quail. Cook chicken through to the bone, but the tender nuggets of sweet quail meat are best enjoyed medium-rare.
I learnt this definitively last weekend when I got up close and personal with a dozen quails. Having never cooked it at home, I went with a three-pronged approach: what better way to figure out the best way than to try it every way? Quail recipes are, by and large, annoying; if something needs to be suffocated in marmalade to be good, it probably wasn’t very good to begin with. Besides, I like the taste of quail meat. Aiming for a perfect medium-rare across the board, and armed with garlic and herbs, we pan-fried four marinated quails to crispy goodness, sizzled four more over the hot coals of the grill, and blitzed the rest under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Grilling was the unanimous winner – and the broiler was a fail, with the heat overcooking the meat, elevating the slight gaminess to straight-up livery, and causing the flesh to dissolve into a grainy mess.
Arabs are big fans of hunting small game birds – and eating them, too. The Lebanese prize their assafir, or ortolans, the crunchy, bite-sized delicacy whose consumption is the topic of some controversy (they’re illegal in Europe). Another favourite, squab, is a young domesticated pigeon raised for food and sport as has been done in the Middle East since ancient times.
Throughout the Arab world, squabs are stuffed and grilled, and have a flavour similar to chicken thighs. Like quail, squab is best enjoyed medium-rare, with one exception: the traditional Andalusi Arab dish, bisteeya. Reminiscent of a savoury baklava, it’s an elaborate sweet-and-savoury pie made with slow-braised spiced squab, shredded to make a rich filling that’s wrapped in crackly, paper-thin layers of pastry, topped with ground toasted almond, cinnamon and a dusting of powdered sugar. Almaz by Momo in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates and The Galleria in Abu Dhabi serve a decent, if slightly cloying, version of both chicken and squab bisteeya.
Nouf Al-Qasimi is an Emirati food analyst who cooks and writes in New Mexico
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
BRIEF SCORES:
Toss: Nepal, chose to field
UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23
Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17
Result: UAE won by 21 runs
Series: UAE lead 1-0
Bio:
Favourite Quote: Prophet Mohammad's quotes There is reward for kindness to every living thing and A good man treats women with honour
Favourite Hobby: Serving poor people
Favourite Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite food: Fish and vegetables
Favourite place to visit: London
FIXTURES
Thu Mar 15 – West Indies v Afghanistan, UAE v Scotland
Fri Mar 16 – Ireland v Zimbabwe
Sun Mar 18 – Ireland v Scotland
Mon Mar 19 – West Indies v Zimbabwe
Tue Mar 20 – UAE v Afghanistan
Wed Mar 21 – West Indies v Scotland
Thu Mar 22 – UAE v Zimbabwe
Fri Mar 23 – Ireland v Afghanistan
The top two teams qualify for the World Cup
Classification matches
The top-placed side out of Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Nepal will be granted one-day international status. UAE and Scotland have already won ODI status, having qualified for the Super Six.
Thu Mar 15 – Netherlands v Hong Kong, PNG v Nepal
Sat Mar 17 – 7th-8th place playoff, 9th-10th place play-off
Where to Find Me by Alba Arikha
Alma Books
What is type-1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is a genetic and unavoidable condition, rather than the lifestyle-related type 2 diabetes.
It occurs mostly in people under 40 and a result of the pancreas failing to produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugars.
Too much or too little blood sugar can result in an attack where sufferers lose consciousness in serious cases.
Being overweight or obese increases the chances of developing the more common type 2 diabetes.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
How to help
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
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PREMIER LEAGUE RESULTS
Bournemouth 1 Manchester City 2
Watford 0 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
Newcastle United 3 West Ham United 0
Huddersfield Town 0 Southampton 0
Crystal Palace 0 Swansea City 2
Manchester United 2 Leicester City 0
West Bromwich Albion 1 Stoke City 1
Chelsea 2 Everton 0
Tottenham Hotspur 1 Burnley 1
Liverpool 4 Arsenal 0
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Fight card
- Aliu Bamidele Lasisi (Nigeria) beat Artid Vamrungauea (Thailand) POINTS
- Julaidah Abdulfatah (Saudi Arabia) beat Martin Kabrhel (Czech Rep) POINTS
- Kem Ljungquist (Denmark) beat Mourad Omar (Egypt) TKO
- Michael Lawal (UK) beat Tamas Kozma (Hungary) KO
- Zuhayr Al Qahtani (Saudi Arabia) beat Mohammed Mahmoud (UK) POINTS
- Darren Surtees (UK) beat Kane Baker (UK) KO
- Chris Eubank Jr (UK) beat JJ McDonagh (Ireland) TKO
- Callum Smith (UK) beat George Groves (UK) KO
