Skip to main content
Main

Guinea Fowl, Roast

A roasted guinea fowl served with bacon, watercress, bread sauce, Espagnole sauce, and fried breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Watercress and pepper work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Guinea Fowl, Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roast the fowl

  1. Truss the guinea fowl and cover the breast with slices of bacon.

  2. Roast in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, basting frequently.

  3. When three-quarters cooked, remove the bacon to allow the breast to brown.

Prepare the watercress

  1. Wash, drain, and dry the watercress.

  2. Season the watercress with salt, pepper, and a little salad oil.

Serve

  1. Serve the guinea fowl on a hot dish, garnished with watercress, and offer fried breadcrumbs, bread sauce, and Espagnole sauce separately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sauce + watercresstop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Guinea fowl
Provides the main roasted meat, cooked whole and trussed for even roasting.
Slices of bacon
Covers the breast to baste it with fat, keeping it moist while the bird roasts.
Bread sauce
Offers a soft, creamy accompaniment that complements the rich, mild roasted meat.
Espagnole sauce
Adds a rich, savoury brown sauce that moistens and flavours the sliced fowl.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon at three-quarters cooked. Removing the bacon late lets the breast surface brown directly in the oven's dry heat. Leaving it on too long would keep the skin pale and steamed, while removing it too early would dry the breast before it browns.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes