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Roasted Larded Guinea Fowl
Plunge, singe and draw a Guinea fowl, lard the breasts with strips of fat bacon, and truss it like a pheasant. Put it on a spit in front of a clear fire and roast for an hour, basting frequently with butter. Sprinkle it well with flour, cook for ten or fifteen minutes longer, place it on a dish, pour round a little rich gravy, and serve with a sauceboatful of rich gravy.
A spit-roasting instruction written for an open hearth, applied to a bird far leaner than a chicken. The larding is not decoration — guinea-fowl breast has almost no fat of its own and dries out within minutes of being done.
- Plunge, singe and drawThese are butchering steps: scald the bird in near-boiling water to loosen the feathers, burn off the remaining hairs over a flame, then remove the innards. A bird from a butcher or supermarket arrives ready for the larding.
- LardingStrips of fat bacon or pork back fat are threaded through the breast meat with a larding needle. If you have no needle, drape thin bacon or thin sheets of fatback over the breast and tie them on, removing them for the last 15 minutes so the skin colours.
- Spit in front of a clear fireA clear fire is one burnt down past smoke and flame to steady radiant heat. The book gives no oven setting; as a rough modern substitute, roast at about 400F, or start hotter for the first quarter-hour and drop to around 375F.
- Bird size and timingA guinea fowl usually runs 2 to 2 1/2 lb, well under a roasting chicken. The recipe's hour plus ten or fifteen minutes is spit timing before an open fire; in a modern oven, expect roughly 50 to 60 minutes total. Judge by temperature, not the clock: 165F at the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone.
- Trussing like a pheasantLegs drawn tight to the body and tied, wings folded back under. It keeps the thin legs from overcooking before the breast is done, which is the whole difficulty with this bird.
- The flour dredgeSprinkling flour over a basted bird near the end is the old "frothing" trick: the flour absorbs butter and crisps into a pale golden crust. It works in a hot oven, but keep basting or the flour scorches rather than browns.
- Rich gravyThe book assumes a stockpot on hand. Deglaze the roasting pan with a good brown poultry or veal stock, reduce, and finish with a little butter; the pan drippings alone will not fill a sauceboat.
- YieldOne guinea fowl serves two generously, three at a stretch. Rest it 10 minutes before carving.
Guinea fowl is an African bird, Numida meleagris, known to the Romans as the Numidian or Carthaginian hen; the English name is traditionally traced to the Guinea coast, from which Portuguese traders are said to have brought the bird back to European tables. Its flavour is often compared to pheasant rather than chicken, and the flesh is lean and dark, which is consistent with an instruction that sends you straight to larding and to trussing "like a pheasant." The recipe also preserves the older hearth method, roasting on a spit before a clear fire rather than in a closed oven, at a period when the vocabulary of the open fire had not yet been retired from cookbooks.