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Guinea Fowl, Roast

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and roast

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

  2. Roast in a moderately hot oven at 400°F (200°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.

  2. Serve the 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
Is the main meat, roasted whole and basted to cook evenly and stay moist.
Bacon
Covers the breast to baste it with fat, then is removed so the breast can brown.
Bread sauce
Served alongside to add a soft, moist, creamy accompaniment to the roasted bird.
Espagnole sauce
Served separately as a rich brown sauce that adds savoury depth and moisture.

The step that matters

Removing the bacon at three-quarters cooked. Removing the bacon at the right point lets the breast surface brown directly in the oven's heat. Leaving it on too long keeps the skin pale and soft, while removing it too early leaves the breast without protective fat.

“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.

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