I am a great fan of guinea fowl – they have a more interesting taste than chicken, but they don’t tend to be as tough as pheasant often are.

If you can’t find guinea fowl at your supermarket or butchers, then try Hyden Originals. They supply a French breed which is larger (enough for four) and tastier.

You can prepare this, smothered in its marinade well ahead of time.

If you have any leftover guinea fowl, it goes very well in a curry.

Recipe for Indian guinea fowl

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 500ml/2 cup Greek yoghurt
• 2 tbsp ginger wine
• 8 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and crushed with a mortar and pestle
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 4 tsp ground coriander
• juice and zest of a lemon
• 160 ml/⅔ cup chicken stock – or more if the sauce still looks too thick
• 2 jointed guinea fowl

Ingredients to add to the cooked basmati

(go here for the basic Basmati recipe):

• 1 onion
• 2 crushed cloves of garlic
• zest and juice of the other half of the lemon
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
• 1 tsp smoked salt
• 3 cardamom pods (split)
• 10 curry leaves
• 1 tbsp fresh, chopped ginger

Ingredients for the Palestinian tomatoes:

• 6 large (about 1 kg/2 lbs) flavourful (ie from a hot, sunny country) plum tomatoes
• ¼ tsp sweet, smoked Spanish paprika
• bunch of parsley, chopped (or you could use corriander)
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• Indonesian long pepper and smoked salt

 Method

1. Mix all the yoghurt, ginger wine, garlic, turmeric, cumin and garam masala together and divide in half – put one half to the side to make the sauce later. The remainder is your marinade. Use half of it to smear the guinea fowl well, put all in an ovenproof ceramic dish large enough so that the guinea fowl pieces are not overlapping, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge as long as you can. Ideally 24 hours.
2. Next sort out the Palestinian tomatoes – mix the garlic, paprika and chopped parsley.
3. Core the tomatoes, slice downwards (about 1 cm thick), and season – again, you can prepare quite a long time ahead.
4. Preheat the oven to 210ºC.
5. Cover the guinea fowl with foil, and roast it for 25 minutes. Add the rest of the marinade. Continue roasting for another 20 minutes. take off the foil and roast for another 15 minutes. leave to rest for five minutes.
6. MEANWHILE cook the rice in the standard way – but fry the chopped onion and garlic with the rice at the beginning, and add the rest of the ingredients at the end.
7. Fry the tomatoes in the oil on one side.
8. Warm the rest of the yoghurt mix gently with the chicken stock.
9. Turn over tomatoes, adding the garlic, paprika and chopped parsley and take out almost immediately – don’t let them go mushy. Keep warm.
10. Serve rice, guinea fowl, tomatoes and sauce together.

If you’re interested in learning about game, we have an episode all about it on our podcast Serving Up Sustainability! You can listen below. 

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