Guinea-Fowls
Two of these are generally served for a dish, one of which should b larded, and the other covered with a layer of fat bacon; roast them before a brisk fire for about forty-five minutes; glaze and dish them up with water cresses; pour some gravy under, and serve bread sauce separately, in a boat.
A spit-roasting instruction adapted easily to an oven, provided you respect the reason for the bacon: guinea fowl is very lean and dries out faster than chicken.
- The hinge: fatGuinea fowl carries almost no subcutaneous fat, and the barding bacon and larding are not garnish but insurance. Cover the breast with bacon or thin sheets of pork fat for the bulk of the roasting and remove it only for the last 10 minutes to colour the skin.
- "A brisk fire"Before an open fire this means high, direct radiant heat. The book gives no oven settings; as a modern equivalent, a hot start of around 425F for 15 minutes dropped to 375F for the remainder approximates it.
- Timing and donenessForty-five minutes suits a bird of roughly 2 to 3 lb. Go by temperature rather than the clock: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of pork fat through the flesh with a larding needle. If you have no needle, wrapping both birds in bacon achieves most of the same effect.
- GlazeIn this period glaze meant reduced meat stock brushed on at the end, boiled down until it sets to a syrup. A few spoons of well-reduced brown stock or demi-glace does the job.
- Bread sauceMilk infused with onion, clove and a bay leaf, thickened with fresh white breadcrumbs and finished with butter. Served warm in a sauce boat, never poured over the bird.
- Gravy "under"The gravy goes in the bottom of the dish, not over the birds, so the glazed skin stays glossy. Deglaze the roasting pan with stock and strain.
- Yield and restingTwo birds serve four to six. Rest them 10 to 15 minutes before carving; the breast is lean enough that carving straight from the oven costs you noticeable juice.
Guinea fowl are native to sub-Saharan Africa; they were known in classical antiquity as the Numidian hen and were being kept in Europe again by the sixteenth century. Victorian and Edwardian kitchens tended to treat them much as they treated pheasant: lean, dry-roasted at speed, and sent to table with bread sauce and watercress. The trio of bread sauce, gravy and watercress is the standard English service for roast game birds of the period. Larding and barding, the two techniques applied to the pair of birds here, were routine for any lean roast before reliable oven thermostats existed, since a bird turning before an open fire had no gentle setting to fall back on.