Shrimp and Quail Egg Garden Salad

A delightfully fresh dish for summer, this shrimp and quail egg garden salad make a lovely lunch for two by itself or side dish for a potluck or barbecue. 

Since I was a child, I’ve loved quail eggs. Hardboiled with a spicy mayo dipping sauce, they are the perfect picnic food. But they are also very versatile and an easy, tasty, bite-sized way to add protein to a meal. 

If you are also a fan of quail eggs, you might want to check out a few of my recipes that feature them. 

• Spicy Sweet Soy Eggplant Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry
• Scotch Quail Eggs
• Malaysian-style Curry Laksa 
• Deviled Quail Egg Shrimp Canapés 

Shrimp and Quail Egg Garden Salad

I happened to have some blood oranges in my fruit drawer so I used them in the salad and the dressing. Substitute regular oranges, mandarins or even tangerines if you don’t. 

Ingredients to serve two for lunch

For the dressing: 

1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

Freshly ground black pepper

3 oz or 85g crumbled feta

For the salad:

1/2 heart of romaine

1 heirloom or summer tomato

1 orange

10-12 cold boiled shrimp, peeled, tails intact

10-12 hardboiled quail eggs, peeled and halved

2 green onions, green part only, sliced

Method

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the olive oil, orange juice and vinegar along with the mustard powder and black pepper. 

Add in the crumbled feta and stir. Set aside until ready to serve. Chill if it will be a while.

Wash and spin your lettuce leaves. Trim any hard ends and discard. Rip the rest into bite size pieces and spread them around on your serving plate. Cut the tomato into wedges and add them to the lettuce.

Peel the orange and cut it into bite-sized pieces. 

Scatter them among the tomatoes, along with the shrimp and halved quail eggs. 

Sprinkle on the sliced green onions. Give the dressing another good stir then serve it alongside the salad so each person can dress their own (especially if you think there might be leftovers) or spoon the dressing over the salad and serve.

Enjoy! 

Welcome to the 17th edition of Alphabet Challenge 2025, brought to you by the letter Q. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the Q recipes below:

• Food Lust People Love: Shrimp and Quail Egg Garden Salad 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Quinoa Idli 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Blueberry Banana Quick Bread 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Sourdough Quinoa Bread 
• A Messy Kitchen: Roasted Cauliflower Quiche 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Nectarine Quinoa Salad 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Shrimp Fajita Quesadillas 
• Magical Ingredients: Queso Dip 
• Culinary Cam: Quince Sharlotka 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Parmesan Potato & Zucchini Crustless Quiche 
• Blogghetti: Ham and Broccoli Quiche

Here are my posts for the 2025 alphabet challenge, thus far:

A: Roasted Asparagus Soup

B: Blistered Sugar Snap Peas

C. Jersey Royal Chicken Chorizo Traybake 

D. Small Batch Dried Apricot Jam 

E. Whipped Espresso Cream 

F. Fish Sauce Roasted Chicken 

G. Extra Herby Gremolata 

H. Smoked Herring Spread 

I.  Fresh Cherry Ice Cream 

J. Small Batch Strawberry Jam 

K. Kiwi Tomato Feta Salad 

L. Lobster Butter 

M. Milk-Roasted Chicken 

N. Nocciolata Swirl Meringues 

O. Jersey Octopus Ceviche 

P. Easy Pastina Soup 

Q. Shrimp and Quail Egg Garden Salad – this post! 

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Deviled Quail Egg Shrimp Canapés

Made with hard-boiled quail eggs and cold boiled shrimp, you'll want to serve these tasty deviled quail egg shrimp canapés at your next party! 

When I came across a dozen already cooked quail eggs at my local grocery store the other day, discounted price even, I knew they were coming home with me. And then, in the very next refrigerated case there was another discounted item, a container of cold boiled shrimp. I couldn’t wait put them together to create a delicious appetizer. 

I debated about what to set them on, besides a flavored cream cheese (in my head, that was already a given) and finally settled on making blinis but if you want, you can serve these atop cucumber slices or even round toasted slices of baguette, depending on the size of your shrimp.

Shrimp Deviled Quail Egg Canapés

If you don’t have already hard-boiled quail eggs, you can follow my instructions in my Scotch quail egg post, but let the eggs boil for four minutes. It’s a bit of a faff but not cooking them all at once makes them easier to peel, in my humble opinion. The blini batter will make more than you need. Eat the extras like pancakes with butter and jam and/or syrup. 

Ingredients

For the spread:

1 green onion top (green part only)

3 1/2 oz or 100g cream cheese, softened

1 fresh lemon wedge for juice

freshly ground black pepper

For the blini batter:

1 1/2 cups or 188g all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup or 240ml milk, at room temperature

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, for the pan

For the toppings:

12 hard-boiled quail eggs, peeled

12 cold boiled shrimp, peeled

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

hot sauce, optional

Smoked paprika for garnish

Method

First, finely mince the green onion top and set aside a little bit for garnish. Mix the rest with the softened cream cheese and a good squeeze of fresh lemon. Give it a few good grinds of black pepper, stir then set aside. 

Next, make the blini. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk the milk, egg, and 1 tablespoon melted butter together.  Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and whisk until the batter is fully combined.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Cooking several blini at a time, drop batter, one tablespoon at a time, onto the heated skillet. Cook until bubbles form, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Flip and continue cooking until brown, about 1 minute more. 

Move to a paper towel-lined plate.  Repeat with the remaining batter until all the blini are cooked.

Halve the quail eggs and carefully remove the yolks to a small bowl.

Mash the yolks with a fork then add in the mayonnaise and mustard, continuing to mash and mix until you have a smooth mixture. Add a dash of hot sauce, if desired and mix again. 

Slice the shrimp in half lengthwise. 

To assemble the canapés, divide the cream cheese mixture between 24 blini arranged on a serving platter and spread it.

Top with a half shrimp followed by a half quail egg white. 

Use a piping bag or baggie with a corner cut off to pipe the yolk mixture back into the egg whites. 

Sprinkle with smoked paprika and the reserved green onion.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating National Egg Month by sharing egg recipes. Check out all the links below.

• Breakfast Pizza from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cottage Cheese Scrambled Egg Skillet from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Egg Ghee Roastfrom Mayuri's Jikoni
• Deviled Egg Dip from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Deviled Quail Egg Shrimp Canapés from Food Lust People Love
• Indo Chinese Style Chilly Omelette Stir Fry from Sneha's Recipe
• Pickled Quail Eggs from Culinary Cam

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Spicy Sweet Soy Eggplant Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry

This recipe is a mouthful in more ways than one! Spicy Sweet Soy Eggplant Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry will fill your belly and please all your taste buds.

Once upon a time (back in the late ’80s) we lived on the island of Borneo in the small oilfield town of Balikpapan. Borneo is owned by three countries. The tiniest bit in the northwest corner belongs to the Sultanate of Brunei and the rest falls under the jurisdiction of either Indonesia or Malaysia. Balikpapan is in the Indonesia section called Kalimantan. I had tried sweet soy sauce aka kecap manis before but that is where I fell in love.

Kecap manis, pronounced kuh-CHOP MAH-nees, is a must-have in so many Indonesian dishes. It’s soy sauce sweetened with palm sugar so it makes sense that the name translates to “sweet sauce” in English. 

In most Indonesian restaurants, a small bowl of kecap manis and chopped bird’s eye chili peppers will be on every table, just in case what you ordered didn’t have kecap manis in it but you want to add some. I usually did. 

I have hauled bottles of the ABC brand sauce in my luggage all over the world! I love it that much. It’s the key ingredient in my spicy sticky wings and my Bali spicy grilled fish.  

I came across this recipe online while searching for something to make with eggplant and tofu. As soon as I saw kecap manis in the ingredients list, I knew I had to make it. It reminded me a bit of my braised pork and egg dish and I adore that! 

Spicy Sweet Soy Eggplant Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry

This recipe is adapted from one I found on Cookpad. The author is from Bandung, Indonesia, which is on Java, the same island as the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.  You can find kecap manis, fresh quail eggs, and fried tofu at most Asian markets. Check the refrigerated section for the latter two. 

Ingredients - serves 4

2 eggplant (approximately 1 2/3 lbs or 740g total) 

fine sea salt 

1 small onion – about 3 1/2 oz or 100g

4 cloves garlic

4 fresh red chili peppers

7 oz or 200g fried tofu - cut into cubes (I used already seasoned with lemon grass and chili) 

2 tablespoons canola or another light oil

1/3 cup or 80ml kecap manis aka sweet soy sauce

12 hard-boiled quail eggs

chopped cilantro – some for pan and some to garnish

To serve: cooked white or brown rice 

Method

Cut the eggplant into cubes (no need to peel) and put them in a colander, lightly sprinkling on sea salt as you add the cubes in layers. Set the colander in a sink (or over a large bowl) to drain. 

Meanwhile, make the onion, garlic and red chili peppers into a paste in a small food processor or mortar and pestle. Set aside.

Dry the eggplant with paper towels then fry it in batches in large nonstick skillet until the pieces are golden on all sides. Sometimes a little drizzle of oil helps this process. It depends on your non-stick skillet. 

Set the browned eggplant aside on a large plate. 

Cut the fried tofu into bite-sized pieces and repeat the pan-frying process in the same non-stick skillet. When the tofu is golden on all sides, pop it on top of the eggplant. 

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan. Add in the onion/garlic/chili paste. 

Fry over a medium heat for a few minutes, until fragrant. That is to say, until it no longer smells sharply of onion and garlic. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and let it simmer for a few minutes more. 

Add in the sweet soy sauce and cook over a low heat till it’s a bit sticky looking. Stir often so it doesn’t burn. 

Add the tofu and eggplant back into the pan, along with the boiled quail eggs. 

Fold gently to coat them with the sauce and cook for a few minutes more until everything is heated through again.  Sprinkle with some chopped cilantro and stir it in gently. 

Top with more cilantro to serve. I serve this over cooked white or brown rice and put my habanero sauce on the table in case anyone would like it spicier than it already is!

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay again and our featured ingredient is the incredible edible egg! Check out the recipe links below. Many thanks to our host, Rebekah of Making Miracles!

• Ajitsuke Tamago (Ramen Eggs) from Palatable Pastime
• Baked Eggs with Parmesan and Chives Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Beet-Marbled Eggs with Feta from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Dosa Egg Sandwich Sneha's Recipe
• Egg, Ham and Cheese Crepe Pockets from Making Miracles
• Huevos Rancheros from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Huevos Rancheros Verde from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Ramen Bowls with Spinach & Poached Eggs from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Spicy Sweet Soy Eggplant Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry from Food Lust People Love

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Tofu Quail Egg Stir-fry!

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