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Fricassee of Guinea Fowl
Young guinea hens make a delicious fricassee. Clean them, and cut them in pieces the same as chickens. Place some slices of fat bacon in a frying-pan, and when these have fried long enough to extract some of the oil, add the pieces of fowl and brown them well. To every two fowls add to the pan two tablespoons of flour, stir until thoroughly mixed, and then add one pint of hot water, one teaspoon of salt and one-fourth of a teaspoon of pepper, stirring until the gravy boils. Cover well, and simmer in a gentle heat until the meat is tender, which is generally in one and one-half hours. Serve with the gravy from the bottom of the pan, adding more salt and pepper, if needed.
A plain brown fricassee — bacon fat, flour, water — that depends almost entirely on the browning step for its flavour. A few notes on the bird and the timing.
- Sourcing the birdGuinea fowl is sold by specialty butchers and some farmers' markets, usually dressed at 2–3 lb. Two birds serve four to six. A pair of small chickens or a rabbit takes the same treatment, though guinea meat is darker and drier.
- "Fat bacon"In American kitchens of this period this generally meant fat salt pork or unsmoked fat side rather than modern sugar-cured streaky bacon. Two or three thick slices give enough rendered fat to brown the pieces; if you use ordinary bacon, expect a smokier, sweeter gravy.
- Cutting upBreak the bird into eight or ten pieces as you would a chicken — two legs split at the joint, two wings, breast halved across. The carcass and neck can go into the pan to enrich the gravy and be lifted out before serving.
- Brown properlyThis is the hinge. The flour and water make a pale, thin sauce on their own; all the colour and depth comes from the fond left by the browning. Work in batches so the pieces sizzle rather than steam, and scrape the pan when the water goes in.
- Flour and liquidTwo tablespoons of flour to one pint (2 cups) of water gives a light gravy that just coats. Add the water hot and in stages, stirring, or the roux will seize into lumps.
- The 90 minutesThe recipe allows one and one-half hours even for young birds. A modern farmed guinea fowl will often be tender well before that, in the region of 40-50 minutes at a bare simmer, and the lean breast can dry out over a longer cooking. Test early, and pull the breast pieces out if they finish first, returning them to warm through.
- Simmer, don't boil"gentle heat" means the surface barely trembles. A rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and clouds the flour gravy. A tight lid and the lowest burner setting, or a low oven, both work.
- Seasoning at the endThe salt pork adds salt of its own, so taste before adding the final seasoning the recipe suggests. A spoonful of cream or a squeeze of lemon at the end is a common enrichment for fricassees, though this one calls for neither.
The guinea fowl is a West African bird, domesticated in antiquity and known to the Romans as the "Numidian hen," reintroduced to Europe by Portuguese traders and carried to North America largely through the colonial and slave trades. By the time the Butterick Publishing Company issued its cook book, guineas were a familiar sight on American farmsteads — kept as much for their shrieking alarm at foxes and strangers as for the table, and semi-wild in habit, roosting in trees and hiding their nests. The bird sits in the Poultry and Game chapter rather than with the chickens, and the flesh is darker and leaner, closer to pheasant. Fricassee, from the French, covers any dish of pieces of meat browned or stewed in a sauce made in the same pan. The long, slow simmer here is insurance against an older, tougher fowl of the sort a farm kitchen would actually have had to hand.