From Like Water for Chocolate · 1992 · Screen-exact
Quail in Rose Petal Sauce
Serve when
Serve it knowing exactly what you're doing — this is the dish that transmits Tita's desire straight into everyone who tastes it, with famously combustible results for Gertrudis.
In the movie
Theatrical
- 00:28:47 Tita cooks the roses Pedro gave her into quail in rose petal sauce; her longing passes through the food into the whole table, and Gertrudis leaves it — and the ranch — at a run, in the film's most famous sequence.
The film's magical realism at its most literal: whatever the cook feels, the eaters feel. Tita's forbidden love enters the sauce and sends her sister literally steaming into the arms of a passing revolutionary. No dish in cinema argues harder that cooking is transmission.
Ingredients
Method
- Brown the seasoned quail in butter; set aside.
- Soften the garlic and shallots; add the stock, honey, ground chestnuts, and half the rose petals. Simmer 10 minutes and blend smooth with the rose water and fruit.
- Season with salt and a whisper of chile — desire needs heat.
- Return the quail to the sauce, cover, and braise gently 15 minutes, until the juices run clear and the thickest part of the thigh reads 165°F.
- Serve draped with sauce and strewn with the reserved petals. Monitor your guests for spontaneous combustion.
Substitutions
- Quail: Cornish hen halves keep the small-bird feel; bone-in chicken thighs are the easiest shop (braise them a little longer to stay tender).
- Rose petals: use organic, unsprayed edible roses — florist roses are usually treated. Dried culinary rose petals, rehydrated, work when fresh unsprayed ones are hard to find.
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