Quail is the smallest of the common game birds, a plump-bodied galliform whose dark, tender meat is delicate and only faintly gamey. Both the bird and its tiny brown-blotched eggs are eaten: the meat is cooked whole — roasted, grilled, spatchcocked or deboned and stuffed — with one bird forming a single elegant portion, while the speckled eggs are boiled, fried or perched raw atop other dishes as a richer, more flavourful jewel than their size suggests.