Guinea Fowl

blimey, I just went to the recipe search on www.ukfood.tv (uk equivalent to the food network's site) and it came up with 24 recipes! Mostly roast, well worth checking it out. The one that caught my eye was with chorizo and sherry, num num

That's how sad I am, I never checked online for recipes - just asked here first.

That looks good though, chickpeas and chorizo. Saying that, I'm tempted just to clean roast it so I get a feel for the root taste of the bird so I can do something more inventive if/when I buy one again.

Of course you asked a set of people you knew before going to a website with recipes from people you don't know!

The only I ever had guinea fowl, I had the breast pan-fried, served with plain-ish accompaniments (buttered new potatoes, steamed green beans etc) and it was lovely, just allowed the taste of the bird to come through. I'm not sure why I've never had it since.

I would imagine some sort of cherry/cranberry/redcurrant/juniper/some other fruit sauce (separate suggestions, not all at once!) as an accompaniment would be fantastic as well. I've also had both rhubarb and raspberry as accompaniments to game, and those could be worth a gamble as well.

They're better in a roasting pan than walking around on the farm, I know that much. Stupid little buggers.

Like many game birds, they're not as fat as chicken, so not as juicy when cooked. Hence, potroast is a good idea (also very easy, if you've got a big enough pot).

Stick it in the pot with a glass of white wine (or dry vermouth) & a glass of water. Add some chopped veg (fennel works best, with onion & garlic), some herbs (thyme, bay leaf or 2). Cover the breast in butter + salt/pepper.
Lid on,-->hot oven for an hour. Lid off, baste, back in the oven for another halfhour (without lid) to brown up.

Guinea foul are often very cheap at this time of year. The butcher near my work (in London) does French ones for about £2.50 - will feed 3 people. I think they're pretty intensively reared, but they taste like a decent free-range chicken.

Hmm. A decidedly average bird, and not worth the effort.

Simply roasted, with bacon on the breasts to prevent drying out, served with a redcurrant, sugar and rum reduction, baby turnips roasted with balsamic and baked beetroot with shallots and garlic.

Breast meat very much like chicken (almost indistinguishable), brown meat only in legs and slightly different but not much. The bird is put together very strangely though - for a start, the breastbone appears to be the wrong way round (it isn't, but the shape of it gives that impression), the ribcage is very small despite the breasts being surprisingly small, and the wishbone goes directly through the front of the breast. I'm inclined to think it would butcher far better raw than it did cooked.

All the fat is around the parson's nose and top of the legs, absolutely all of it, is bright yellow and slightly unpleasant in smell. Taste is nothing outstanding. This makes this end of the bird very difficult to deal with, particularly making the legs very unappetising (compounded by the legs being very sinewy and difficult to take the meat off), and the oysters are a bugger to get to.

I won't be bothering again, I don't think.

Oh dear, the oysters.

This is often my experience when buying game. Things like g-fowl, pheasant etc - they're cheap & seasonal, so I'm attracted to them in the butcher's every year, but afterwards I tend to think "OK, this is why chicken became so popular..."