Pintade à l’orange, anis et hydromel – or guinea fowl with orange and mead!

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I love game and specially guinea fowl which is luckily in season at the moment! So tonight I made a guinea-fowl pot roast: I am a big fan of pot roasting for any bird because it keeps it juicy and tender and there is nothing worse than dry poultry… This one was certainly not dry as I cooked it in chicken stock laced with the rest of Mead (from a few posts ago) and lots of herbs. The young carrots and the turnips came from the organic farmers’ market and they were the inspiration for the recipe because I wanted them whole and fragrant and they make a really nice looking dish. The turnips came out moist and tender having soaked the fragrance of the fennel seeds and star-anis and tasted better than I ever thought turnips could taste.

 

Ingredients:

1 plump guinea fowl (ask your butcher to chop it up in eight portions)

3 big shallots

1 orange, zest and juice

6 young turnips (peeled and chopped in halves)

8 to 10 young carrots (scrubbed and whole)

500ml chicken stock

1 glass of Mead or any sweet pudding wine

pepper and salt

crushed fennel seeds

3 star-anis

2 bay leaves

Handful of chopped parsley and chopped coriander

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Rapeseed oil

 

Fry the chopped shallots with the rapeseed oil in a thick-bottomed pan with a lid. Then brown the meat and season well each of the morsels.

Add the stock, a glass of sweet wine and bring to a boil. Chuck in the herbs and seeds.

Add the turnips and the carrots – the younger and smaller the better so they can be kept whole and dainty. Add the juice of half an orange and its zest.

 

Bring back to a boil then put in a warm oven and leave covered for 45 min.

Go for a run, admire the sunset or do whatever you fancy while dinner is gently simmering – another reason to LOVE pot-roast!