Roast Guinea Fowl with Lavender, Mint & Thyme

One of my most favourite cook books is one I don't actually use very much, because it's a bit specialised - it's called "Flavours of the World" by Paul Gayler. It's unusual because instead of organising itself the way many cookbooks do, either by type of course or type of meat/fish/veg etc., it's organised around different flavours. There are sections devoted to coffee, lemon, cinnamon, etc. covering a host of strong individual ingredients; and amongst them all is a section on lavender.

I've always been a big fan of lavender, but it's not exactly fashionable and still retains it's association with grandmas more than michelin stars. But there's a recipe in the book that I always wanted to try, and it's this one with guinea fowl. Trouble is I've never been unable to source all the right things at the right time in the past, but now I have a regular and reliable source for guinea fowl (a woman at Cullompton Farmer's market - apologies but I've forgotten your name!) I've finally got round to making it.

Well I've almost sourced everything - I should say that the recipe calls for Summer Savory, not mint and thyme, but I reckon they should make a good substitute so have adapted the recipe a bit to suit.

At it's heart the recipe is quite simple - you make a butter from the lavender and the herbs and push this under the skin of the bird before roasting. It's a trick I've done a few times since I first tried it at Christmas, and ensures the bird is moist whilst imparting whatever flavours are in the butter directly into the meat during the roast. There is a trick to the lavender though - you need to make what the author calls "lavender pollen" first.

Lavender Pollen

A very poetic name for something a little more prosaic, but easily made and stored. We have a lavender & rosemary hedge that I planted many years ago, and it's just in flower still so still time to make some. You just snip off the heads of as much lavender as you need, and then pop them into a very low oven (150ºC) for about an hour. They dry up very easily, and then it's a simple job to strip the flowers off the stems and then pound them up in a pestle and mortar until you have a fine powder.


The lavender ready to go into the oven for drying

Now back to the recipe ...

Once the guinea fowl has had the butter added (quick note - should have the rind of 1 lemon added as well), then squeeze the juice of 1 lemon over the bird (yep, that's the rest of the lemon!), and pour over a good amount of olive oil. Then into a moderate-hot oven for ½ an hour. Next in go a good handful of new potatoes - sliced in half in large - for another half an hour. Finally inch chunks of fennel, pepper (orange in my case) and aubergine in equal quantities.

Timing at this point gets tricky. The bird will need to come out in about 15 mins, and then rest for 15 mins, so you have about half an hour to play with to make sure all the veg is properly cooked. At some point though you'll need to get the bird off the roasting tray so you can deglaze all the juices and make the sauce - personally I often just move my veg into a clean roasting pan to let them finish, but this time around the veg was all really well cooked already so I moved it all off onto a serving platter to keep warm with the bird.

The sauce needs a bit of work. Once you've got your bird and the rest of the veg off the original roasting tray, deglaze with a small glass of sweet white wine, and then add about double the amount of stock. Cook this down into a coating sauce, pour over the bird and voila, you're done.


The finished dish, all ready for serving.

So how was it after all this? Pretty damn tasty. Unusual for sure, and I swear we actually spent the first 5 minutes battling the wasps for it who obviously thought this was some sort of wasp nirvana. Thank god for citronella candles ... and a badminton racket! I don't think I'll bother with all the veg next time, but will certainly be using lavender again in my cooking, and I fancy it'll make it's next appearance in a lamb dish. I have some left over lavender pollen ready. The bird was certainly very moist and tasty - better than last time I cooked guinea fowl - so the trick with the butter is worth it that's for sure.


Plated up and ready for munching.

Sunday Doubles: 'Open' Pot Slow Roast Lamb Shoulder with Leeks & Lemon Balm + Fast Roast Rack of Lamb with Rosemary

Sunday roasts can start to feel a bit samey eventually, and though I try and be experimental I often fall back to the old favourites. This Sunday though I was definitely feeling a bit more experimental, so not only decided to try some new ideas out but also to do a double roast with lamb both fast and slow.

I first had this at River Cottage, and loved the idea of tender slow roast lamb falling off the bone at the same time as tender pink juicy lamb with crispy fat. Sure it's a bit more work to do, but the slow roast pretty much takes care of itself once it's in the oven so you're not slaving in the kitchen all morning.

I've been experimenting with slow roasts in particular at the moment, and am working in an idea where the meat is pushed into a deep roasting container (I use a big Creuset pot) on top of various vegetable and herb flavourings. This keeps the more tender ingredients from burning, and helps the meat steam and roast at the same time keeping it really moist without losing that lovely crispy fat. I've done a fair bit of this with lamb recently, so was looking for something unusual, and as I gazed out my kitchen window my eyes came to rest on the Lemon Balm ...


The ingredients for the slow roast

Lemon and lamb are good bed fellows, but the lemon balm would be too light by itself, so I went for that other stalwart with lamb, leeks. The method's quite simple:

• slice 2 leeks an average thickness, put them in the bottom of a deep Creuset pan or similar, add a little olive oil, salt & pepper, and toss together.


• add a very generous bundle of lemon balm, criss crossing the leeks to cover.


• rub the shoulder of lamb with a little more olive oil, season well, and then squeeze it on top. It must be a tight fit, so if necessary take a cleaver to any tricky edges, and then tuck whatever has been cut off in any holes.

Lamb tucked into the pot over the other ingredients


This then went into a normal oven at 150ºC for 4 hours. I did need to add a generous splash of lamb stock (water would have done) after about and hour and a half, as it was getting a little dry by then. You do need to keep a vague eye on it, but if you don't have the time just add the stock at the beginning of cooking instead.

Then there was the fast lamb. For this I managed to find a small rack, which to my mind is the best lamb for fast roasting like this. The butcher had chined the back, making it easy to carve later, so I squeezed a rosemary sprig in there, criss crossed the fat with a sharp knife to speed up the crisping, and seasoned well. Then into a very hot oven, I did it as hot as I could in mine, for only 20 minutes, plus about 10-20 minutes resting after.


The rack of lamb once cooked


Our broad beans, which we overwintered this year very successfully, are being very prolific, so we'd purposefully left some to get large with the idea to make minted broad bean puree. Didn't come out quite the way we wanted, a bit too loose I think, but tasty all the same. Also served this with buttered thyme potatoes, nice combination that.


The finished dish. You can make out what's left of the leeks on the left of the plate, they caramelised wonderfully. I didn't serve the lemon balm, that was just for flavour

The end result was a lovely combination of flavours and textures, and there's not much I'd change. Oddly enough I thought the lemon balm might have made it a little antiseptic, but in the end the flavour wasn't strong enough, so next time I'll add more I think. The leeks had caramelised so much they were delicious but powerful, so probably dominated the lemon balm a little - though not the lamb. That's a tricky meat to dominate!

Beef Carpacio - a Sunday Roast for Summer

Been a way for a bit, hence the pause, but here's a goody that I've already managed to squeeze in twice this summer. The idea is to coat a nice piece of beef fillet with a very generous amount of crushed sea salt and black peppercorns, fry it over a high heat on all sides to give that crispy outside, and then finish off for just ten minutes in a very hot oven.




You end up with a piece of meat that's practically raw in the middle and crusty on the outside, so you have to make sure you're using a really good piece of meat to start with.



The other great thing about this dish is the sauce - a mayo made with lots of fresh mint and mustard. Wouldn't have thought of mint and beef, but this works a treat. Served with new pots and a leafy salad. And to finish? What could be better than a traditional english trifle, made with fresh cherries from the village and whatever else we could find!