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ventaOn a whim, at the weekend, I picked up a guinea fowl for Sunday dinner. I was milling about in the butcher's wondering what to buy and figured well, why not. I've never cooked guinea fowl before, so had a little hunt through the cookbook shelf and decided to go for a pot-roasting recipe of Jamie Oliver's. Mr Oliver himself may well be an irritating little sprunt, but his recipes are usually decent.
Guinea fowl pot-roasted with blood oranges[*], celery and sage gave me a few problems, though. The recipe could have been written a lot more clearly, but the issues were all to do with actual bird-wrangling. Maybe there's something obvious which you lot all know that I don't.
So, you clean your guinea fowl up, stuff it with thinly-sliced celery,oranges lemons and thyme, and truss it up tidily. The you heat up a pan on the stove, and seal your guinea fowl all over with olive oil. And boy, is that tricky.
Have you ever tried to turn a whole, trussed bird over in a pan without ripping the skin? Once you've turned it a few times and it's become even more oily and slippery, flipping it over onto its breast is quite a skill. One which, it appears, I don't have. Does everyone else own special textured, heat-proof silicon gloves, or some other bird-shifting utensils?
Anyway, I bodged my way through that bit. Next stop: butter, sage, garlic and white wine in the pan. Heat up, shove in oven. Inspect at intervals to top the wine up, and the bird does a roast/steam combo while I sort the vegetables out.
Once it was done, Mr Oliver reckons I should lift it "carefully" out of the pan, and put it to rest upside down (ie breast-side down). OK. I'm happy with the whole idea in principle. But in practice... the bird is now not only intractable and slithery, but roasting hot. A tip or two on exactly how one performs this operation "carefully" and without burning one's mitts wouldn't have gone amiss.
(I went for lifting it onto one plate, putting another over the top, and flipping the entire outfit. This worked, so long as you consider covering most of the hob/worktop with roasting juice to be acceptable fall-out.)
OK, now he says to take the fat out of the roasting pan, throw in some wine, heat it all up and bingo! Gravy. No problems, I can do that. Oh, and what am I adding to this gravy? "Simply shake the stuffing out of the cavity and into the gravy".
Er, right. So not content with making me turn a 225° bird upside down, you now want me to pick it up and shake it? Excellent. I'll just do that, then. Get Outkast on the stereo.
Actually, I didn't shake. I scooped some of the stuffing out with a spoon, and served it on the plate rather than in the gravy. Mind you, I'm not sure if that was a good plan. The gravy came out very strange - nice, but very, very strong tasting, more like a gravy concentrate than anything else. Possibly it would have benefitted from some lemons and celery.
The stuffing was supposed to steam itself cooked, by the way, and indeed the lemons went nicely jammy. The celery was still very crunchy - which was pretty much what I'd expected from a cooking time of around 45 mintues. It's not clear whether this was what the man intended, but that was quite strange too.
I need to work on my presentation, too. And, er, learn to carve properly.
I like the roast/steam idea, and will probably try that again. Although I might revert to my customary practice of just putting a whole lemon inside the bird. (I do make proper stuffing, but think it's just nicer if it's cooked separately.)
[*] OK, so I didn't quite play by the rules. I don't like oranges (and they don't like me) so I used lemons.
Guinea fowl pot-roasted with blood oranges[*], celery and sage gave me a few problems, though. The recipe could have been written a lot more clearly, but the issues were all to do with actual bird-wrangling. Maybe there's something obvious which you lot all know that I don't.
So, you clean your guinea fowl up, stuff it with thinly-sliced celery,
Have you ever tried to turn a whole, trussed bird over in a pan without ripping the skin? Once you've turned it a few times and it's become even more oily and slippery, flipping it over onto its breast is quite a skill. One which, it appears, I don't have. Does everyone else own special textured, heat-proof silicon gloves, or some other bird-shifting utensils?
Anyway, I bodged my way through that bit. Next stop: butter, sage, garlic and white wine in the pan. Heat up, shove in oven. Inspect at intervals to top the wine up, and the bird does a roast/steam combo while I sort the vegetables out.
Once it was done, Mr Oliver reckons I should lift it "carefully" out of the pan, and put it to rest upside down (ie breast-side down). OK. I'm happy with the whole idea in principle. But in practice... the bird is now not only intractable and slithery, but roasting hot. A tip or two on exactly how one performs this operation "carefully" and without burning one's mitts wouldn't have gone amiss.
(I went for lifting it onto one plate, putting another over the top, and flipping the entire outfit. This worked, so long as you consider covering most of the hob/worktop with roasting juice to be acceptable fall-out.)
OK, now he says to take the fat out of the roasting pan, throw in some wine, heat it all up and bingo! Gravy. No problems, I can do that. Oh, and what am I adding to this gravy? "Simply shake the stuffing out of the cavity and into the gravy".
Er, right. So not content with making me turn a 225° bird upside down, you now want me to pick it up and shake it? Excellent. I'll just do that, then. Get Outkast on the stereo.
Actually, I didn't shake. I scooped some of the stuffing out with a spoon, and served it on the plate rather than in the gravy. Mind you, I'm not sure if that was a good plan. The gravy came out very strange - nice, but very, very strong tasting, more like a gravy concentrate than anything else. Possibly it would have benefitted from some lemons and celery.
The stuffing was supposed to steam itself cooked, by the way, and indeed the lemons went nicely jammy. The celery was still very crunchy - which was pretty much what I'd expected from a cooking time of around 45 mintues. It's not clear whether this was what the man intended, but that was quite strange too.
I need to work on my presentation, too. And, er, learn to carve properly.
I like the roast/steam idea, and will probably try that again. Although I might revert to my customary practice of just putting a whole lemon inside the bird. (I do make proper stuffing, but think it's just nicer if it's cooked separately.)
[*] OK, so I didn't quite play by the rules. I don't like oranges (and they don't like me) so I used lemons.
