Pot Roasted Guinea Fowl with sage

This is a wonderful Springtime feasts for all the senses and better still it's a one pot dish! Drink with Viogner.
The guinea fowl's lacks of fat means that we need to find ways of keeping its flesh moist during cooking. So here you let the guinea fowl cook in its own steam. In other words, a pot roast. What you get is plenty of juicy meat that tastes of itself and plenty of clear savoury juices.

Ingredients - Serves 2

a guinea fowl - plump and oven ready

butter - 2 thick slices (80g)

garlic - 4 large juicy cloves

celery - 3 large ribs and a few leaves

new potatoes - 12 smallish

sage leaves - 6 decent sized

white vermouth such as Noilly Prat - 250ml

Method

Set the oven at 180 oc Wipe the guinea fowl, remove any stray feathers then season it thoroughly inside and out with salt and pepper. Melt half the butter in a deep casserole, one to which you have a lid. You want it hot enough to brown the bird but not so hot that it burns too quickly. Put the bird in the hot butter, letting it colour on all sides. When the skin is a rich gold remove the bird, pour away the butter and wipe the pan with kitchen paper. (The trick is to wipe away any burned butter but to leave any sticky goo stuck to the pan.)

While the bird is colouring in the butter you can peel the garlic, trim and cut the celery into short (2cm) lengths. Wash the potatoes and either halve them or slice them thickly depending on their size.

Melt the remaining half of the butter in the pan and add the potatoes, letting them colour lightly, then introduce the celery pieces and sage and celery leaves and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the vermouth, bring to the boil, letting it bubble for a minute or two then return the bird and any escaped juices to the pan. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven for 35-40 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven, take off the lid and gently split the bird's legs away from its body, nicking the skin with a knife as you go. Return the bird, legs akimbo and without the lid, to the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove the legs then remove each breast in one piece. Put a leg and a breast on each of the two warm plates and then divide up the potatoes, celery and their juices.

Accomapyments; wet Polenta or a Warm lentil salad or a crust loaf of Bread.