Guinea Fowl with Celeriac and Rosemary

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of hosting my lovely friend Rachel (Rachel blogs too - you should check her out here) and her husband, for the weekend. Now I'm always the kind of host who subjects my friends to recipes I've never tried before - it's always an experiment over at my house!

This time I decided to cook guinea fowl. I had never eaten, let alone cooked this type of bird. All I knew was that it was meant to taste like chicken but slightly more gamey. It turned out to taste EXACTLY like chicken, and since it's not a really expensive bird, would be a great alternative to a Sunday roast if you're getting bored of the usual chicken.

I paired the guinea fowl with, again, a vegetable I'd never had: celeriac. Now celeriac is a strange one. Rachel and I discovered this when cutting it, that it smells so much like celery (I'm guessing it's from the family of celery?) but tastes NOTHING like it. I would happily say that it's one of my new fave veggies. It's a great alternative to potato as it's really similar, especially when you roast it in slices.

So enough talking, here's what I did:

Notes: with the leftover guinea fowl meat, you can always make my tasty and warming, rustic veg and guinea fowl soup.

Ingredients

25g salted butter, slightly melted

1 medium guinea fowl

1 celeriac, peeled

2 garlic cloves

A handful of rosemary sprigs

200ml chicken stock

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees/180 fan.

2. Rub the slightly melted butter over the guinea fowl, ensuring you cover all areas. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Slice the peeled celeriac into thick, semi-circle slices. Place into a baking tray.

4. Make the stock (I just used half a stock cube) and pour over the celeriac. Use a garlic crusher to crush in the garlic and sprinkle over the rosemary sprigs. Mix all together. This technique is called boulangere - typically done with potatoes.

5. Put the celeriac on the bottom shelf of the oven and the guinea fowl on the top shelf, straight on the rack. This will slow the fat from the guinea fowl to drip onto the celeriac, creating a lovely gravy and caramelisation. Roast for 45-50 minutes.

6. Once the guinea fowl is cooked through and juices run clear, remove from the oven. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Allow the celeriac to roast for a further 30 minutes, until tender and slightly crispy on the edges.

7. Once cooked, serve with the juices from the tray. I also served mine with roasted potatoes, in case my guests were not fans of celeriac! All-in-all though, everyone loved it!