Beat the chills with succulent home-made guinea

 Being driven the other day, in a fancy NGO Land Cruiser I heard the sound of a laughing child. No children were in the vehicle and it took a while to dawn on me that it was the driver’s mobile ringing. A companion in the car told me she had heard ring tones featuring crying babies or children shouting ‘Mummy, Mummy’ – guaranteed to grab a mother’s attention. Not for me thanks. There’s enough to worry about with actual reality never mind raising blood pressure with imaginary children crying for attention.
A work colleague’s mobile phone features guinea fowl calls.  When he was out of the room the other day the calls got louder and more raucous as he failed to pick up. Amazingly realistic. Another one for me to avoid as I have enough real birds in my own garden – making a racket dawn and dusk and at intervals throughout the day.
Website wisdom claims that guineas are a benefit to the garden, eating ticks, weeds and insects and avoiding green vegetables. Mine took a while to reach that stage and early days saw seedlings decimated by browsing birds or uprooted by the joy of dust baths in newly turned earth.  These days – happily – they avoid the now fenced in vegetable garden. But with five cocks struggling to rule the roost and strangely attacking the couple of hens it seemed time to sacrifice a couple to the pot.
Guineas are surprisingly scarce on city menus though I have seen them bred in many back yards – often confined with the chickens. Ours still run wild throughout the plot and roost in high msasas so are very difficult to catch. We cunningly set a trap – a high old bedstead with chicken wire on three sides and       got them used to feeding in there. After a few days we were able to seize three – maybe eighteen months old now so probably not that tender.
My son tells an old safari joke about cooking guineafowl where you add a brick to the cooking pot along with the guineafowl and cook for three days. After which you throw away the guinea fowl and eat the brick! Hoping to avoid that result I used a cast iron pot and slow cooking and the end result was delicious, tender and flavoursome with the soft dark meat almost falling off the bones.
I haven’t seen guineas for sale in city shops – but for those of you who breed their own or have access elsewhere, this is the recipe that worked well for us.
Chop the guineafowl into pieces. Heat a mixture of olive oil and butter in a heavy pot that can go into the oven  (Any heavy pot will do – but I favour cast iron)  and brown the guineafowl pieces on all sides. Season well with salt, pepper and dried herbs. I used thyme but rosemary (fresh or dry) or savory would also be good). Surround the bird with several carrots chopped into large chunks and half a dozen whole baby onions. Whole garlic cloves – around ten – adds to the rich flavour. I don’t bother to peel it – but when the casserole is cooked, squeeze it out of its skin into the gravy. Pour in half a bottle of red wine and a bunch of parsley. Cover and cook in a very slow oven (around 180 degrees) for 4 to 5 hours.
Served with roasted potatoes and butternut it made a lovely warming winter meal eaten sitting next to the fire. Sweet potatoes, baked or boiled would make an excellent accompaniment.
– g.jeke@yahoo.com