You've got me turning up I'm turning down, I'm turning in I'm turning 'round

[venta]

On a whim, at the weekend, I picked up a guinea fowl for Sunday dinner. I was milling about in the butcher's wondering what to buy and figured well, why not. I've never cooked guinea fowl before, so had a little hunt through the cookbook shelf and decided to go for a pot-roasting recipe of Jamie Oliver's. Mr Oliver himself may well be an irritating

Comments

[valkyriekaren]

I'd probably saute the celery first to soften it. And use fennel or something instead because celery is awful.

Barbecue tongs are useful for turning large or oddly-shaped pieces of meat while sealing in the pan. Though I'd just probably not worry about breaking the skin, and use a carving fork and spatula.

[venta]

I do like celery - and yes, I'd have sauteéd it first, too, but figured I'd follow the recipe for once. I regard fennel as much more risky, because undercooked fennel tastes of TEH ANISEED and is therefore bad.

We did speculate about tongs, actually, and I think that might have been a good idea. Still think shaking a bird that's just come out of the oven is a bit optimistic, though!

[valkyriekaren]

See, I don't like aniseed much, but I do like fennel in things. I'm weird like that though.

Not sure about the 'shake out some of the stuffing' thing, no. I'd have been tempted to just stick a lemon wedge and a few thyme sprigs up its bum, and dump the rest into the pan with the wine etc right from the start. Much less faff.

[venta]

Actually, because the recipe was for two fowl and I was only cooking one, I did absent-mindedly end up with twice as much stuffing as needed, so that would have been trivial :(

[bateleur]

If you were Jamie Oliver you'd have a stainless steel guineafowl-manipulator with a little wooden handle. Ideal for turning and shaking.

[venta]

... and probably purchasable as part of his cookware range, costing £39.99 :)

[triskellian]

I do indeed own a special textured, heat-proof silicon glove. Just one of it, and it's a bit too small, really, but although this was obvious as soon as it arrived from the interwebs, I never quite got round to sending it back for a different size, so figured I'd just start using it. It's awesome, and I keep meaning to get another one, but since I've only got one, I'd have used that and a handy fork or something to wrangle the bird.

(I also have*, less usefully, a kind of silicon roasting-meat sling, which sits under the meat and has handles at the sides, so you can pick it up by the handles and then the meat will slide off it because although it's got little grippy bits, they're not much use.)

(*Or possibly gave away at a kitchen swap since we never use it.)

[venta]

Interesting - I did get some snuggly new oven gloves for Christmas which are excellent for getting pans out of the oven, but I figured they were a bit, well, fluffy for handling roast poultry. Never mind that they'd absorb all the greease. The only silicon glove I've ever seen is this sort of thing which, while they're apparently great for picking up hot roasting tins, I suspect are too stiff and for anything requiring actual dexterity.

The sling does sound like the sort of thing that sounds like a good idea in the shop, though :)

[triskellian]

Yep, that's the bunny. They are indeed not as dextrous as actual hands. OTOH, they are significantly more dextrous than hands which are having the skin burnt off them by a 200° bird, and significantly less fluffy and more dextrous than ordinary oven gloves.

[exspelunca]

You bought me one of these big, bumbly gloves years ago and, as I always start a turkey off breast down for about 45 mins, I use that glove and a large wooden spatula for flipping it over - and we're talking 10lb turkey here, not a titchey guinea fowl. Shaking stuffing out of a cooked bird is the sort of damnfool idea only a telechef could come up with.

[tigerfort]

I use a pair of forks for turning birds (and indeed joints of bigger animals); provided you're careful about how you put them in, it's both safe and easy to disguise the holes. Carving I can't help with - I'm capable of using a knife to turn a big lump of meat into several smaller ones, but there's never anything very tidy about it.

[venta]

Yeah, I'd probably use for forks for (say) beef but always try and keep poultry skin whole, as I think it's nicer that way.

I think the chief carving problem yesterday was that the knife needed sharpening. I mean, the chief of the readily soluble problems, my fundamental lack of ability will be harder to fix :)

[ringbark]

That *is* Turning Japanese, isn't it? Do I get my first kudo of the year? Can't think of anything worth posting that abuts oranges and Japanese. I think they drink more sake than Grand Marnier, but I could be wrong.

[venta]

It is, and you may have your kudo... it was really all about the turning, this post. The Japanese was probably Saturday night, when I was making miso soup, stewed aubergines, edamame, and rice to go with the sashimi we bought from the fish shop :)