{"id":6739,"date":"2016-01-18T19:25:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2016-01-18T19:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:25:56","slug":"guinea-hen-mustard-and-herbs-pan-vegetables-collards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=6739","title":{"rendered":"guinea hen, mustard and herbs, pan vegetables; collards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"guinea_hen_in_pan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

straight out of the oven, above, ‘carved’ and plated, below<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Guinea_fowl_potatoes_collards\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d cooked Guinea fowl<\/a> only\u00a0once before<\/a> since starting this blog 8 years ago, although\u00a0I think I may have prepared it at least once before then, in the darker ages. \u00a0In recent years I’ve rarely\u00a0served any form of chicken at home, and when I do I’m pretty\u00a0picky about it’s source.<\/p>\n

And then, on Friday, while I was at the Lucky Dog Organic<\/a> stand, I again spotted the dressed Guinea hens which are usually arranged\u00a0on the table next to farmer Rich Giles’ own vegetables. \u00a0They’re raised by his\u00a0farmer neighbor, Jennifer Grossman<\/a>, and, for me, the fact that they were there\u00a0had automatically given them an imprimatur way back in 2014. \u00a0On Friday\u00a0they were being offered at half the regular\u00a0price, apparently because the client of a restaurant customer had\u00a0cancelled an event after Grossman’s farm had already processed a\u00a0number of birds. \u00a0They were now looking for a new venue.<\/p>\n

I could not pass up this\u00a0opportunity, especially as I knew I’d have the time to prepare\u00a0a roast of some kind on Sunday, two days later,\u00a0and a\u00a0warm oven seemed like it would be the right sort of thing for that day, since it\u00a0was expected to be pretty cold. \u00a0I would have bought two, saving one for another chilly day, but my freezer was already pretty busy.<\/p>\n

Because I had an entire\u00a0evening to do it, I had a lot of fun\u00a0washing, trimming,\u00a0chopping, and filling up all the prep cups prior to actually placing the bird in the oven. \u00a0There were root-ish vegetables in the pan with the hen, and some tender collard greens\u00a0(fittingly, also from Lucky Dog Organic)\u00a0were easily cooked and set aside while everything else was in the oven, so I was able to concentrate entirely on basting and, eventually, checking for doneness (that last part was a little scary, but everything worked out fine.<\/p>\n

The meal was a great success, largely because of\u00a0the quality of the fixings, and because of the good\u00a0recipe\u00a0I came across on line,\u00a0on epicurious.com<\/a>\u00a0(I roughly halved all of the ingredients for the single bird I cooked).<\/p>\n

There were leftovers. \u00a0Yum. \u00a0Something like this warm salad<\/a> may be their eventual disposition.<\/p>\n