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Donald Russell Guinea Fowl Capon

Review Product: Guinea Fowl Capon , supplied by Donald Russell. Price Paid: £32.00

Food with Passion has been using Donald Russell via mail order for a number of years and has rarely been disappointed with their quality produce.

We would not spend this sort of money on a relatively small bird every day of the year (this 1.8kg Guinea Fowl capon will feed 4-6 people), but as it is the Christmas period and a time for indulgence, we pushed the boat out to see how it would compare to supermarket Guinea Fowls that we have had in the past.

But before we start exploring the experience, what are Guinea Fowl, and in particular....what is a capon?

Well....guinea fowl (sometimes called guinea hen) are a family of birds in the same order as the pheasants, turkeys and other game birds around the size of a normal family chicken.

A capon is a male bird which was castrated at a young age to enable it to grow more slowly and be less aggressive. According to Wikipedia, caponisation is illegal to be performed in the UK, although such meat is not illegal. The act of caponisation introduces an extra layer of fat in the bird to make it self-basting. Therefore there will be no UK reared Guinea Fowl capons available.

As these birds are French in origin reared free range and fed on a non-GM diet on a farm in the famous Loué region of France with a traceable "serial number", UK food standards were irrelevant in its production.

Delivery

Always very efficient. As the birds origin was France, it was delivered Frozen (see picture to the left). Donald Russell delivers using thick polystyrene boxes and has recently started including dry ice sachets to keep the contents frozen. To be honest, we preferred the older ice-gel packs which were safer to handle and didn't seem to defrost so quickly when you have a peek inside your box of goodies.

Also packed with the bird was a sheet with a recipe idea and some cooking guidelines.

In our experience, it is always a good idea to follow Donald Russell's cooking times as they do seem to know what they are talking about, employing their own chef to develop their own recommended recipes.

Planning ahead - Defrosting

As with chicken, it is vital that you ensure the bird is defrosted thoroughly. The recommended interval is 24hrs in a domestic fridge. Food with Passion was caught out when the bird was still frozen in parts after 24hrs, but that may have been a consequence of having rather a full domestic fridge during Christmas and bringing a camping fridge into play for the Guinea Fowl capon. We would never take a chance with poultry and left it for another day.

When defrosted, we could see that the bird had a wonderful colour, quite unlike chicken or turkey and looked forward to the tasting.

All that remained was to get on with the cooking and see if it lived up to expectations.

Cooking

As I mentioned earlier, the capon is a self-basting bird because of its higher fat content. Whilst other game birds may benefit from larding with bacon to baste the bird and protect it from drying out, Donald Russell did not suggest bacon as necessary, so we prepared the bird with some seasoning only.

An interesting suggestion was to stuff the bird with a quartered pear and some sage or rosemary and to roast some more pears alongside for the last 30 minutes or so of cooking.

The oven was pre-heated to 180C and the bird cooked for a first session of 50 minutes by which time the skin had taken on a deep amber colour and we basted the bird with some salt water according to the supplied instructions (helps to crisp the skin), and added the remaining quartered pears.

After another 15 minutes or so in the oven, we tested the bird with a meat thermometer (80C) and found the capon to be ready. The Guinea Fowl caon gave up a lot of fat as expected and instead of using that to make a gravy, we used some good quality Turkey stock that we had retained from our Christmas Turkey (see the Kelly Bronze Turkey review)

The taste test

The breast meat alone was sufficient to feed two adults and two small children with the leg meat kept in reserve for another day. We are doubtful that it could feed 6 adults and you should base it on one bird per 4 adults.

That said, the meat was delicious and moist...that could have been from the pears discharging their juice steaming the bird from the inside or from the extra fat levels that this bird carries. Either way, the bird was very succulent.

Many people are put off from eating game because they expect it to be extremely strong and "gamey". Nothing could have been further from the truth here with the flavour being close to, but more intense than that of a (very!) good quality chicken. If anything, it could have done with a little bit more gaminess to help us feel like we were actually eating game.

The pears were a wonderful marriage suggested by Donald Russell and along with some roast potatoes and some steamed chantenay carrots (they do actually taste of carrots), it made for a very satisfying and simple meal to prepare.

The Verdict

Donald Russell has imported a winner that would be a great introduction to those who think that they do not like game. The cooking was very straightforward and no nonsense making it very hard to get wrong (though I do recommend a good meat thermometer).

The only negative?........it has to be the price. With great quality organic chickens at around half that price, I sense that ta Guinea Fowl capon will only make it to our table on very special occasions....which is a great shame for it deserves wider appreciation.

Review note: this is a non-sponsored review. The bird was bought with our own money and given an honest appraisal based upon our findings on taste, value and convenience. Should any suppliers provide produce on a complimentary, submitted for review basis in the future, we will advise you of that, but you will still have Food with Passion's assurance that every review will be on the basis that someone is being asked to spend their own money on the product .... we will never compromise upon the integrity of our reviews.